Medieval Quotes

• The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.

  Peter Singer

  Philosophy, Sacred, Life Is

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• Our horizon is the creation of a noble society to which, like the medieval builder of those glorious cathedrals, you will have added your conception, your artful piece of stone.

  Adrienne Clarkson

  Horizon, Noble, Pieces

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• We can appreciate but not really understand the medieval town. We cannot comprehend its compactness, the contiguity of all its buildings as a single uninterrupted whole.

  Arthur Erickson

  Appreciate, Towns, Building

  Arthur Erickson's Address to the Institute of Canadian Bankers, www.arthurerickson.com. October 16, 1972.

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• Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he's just a fresh face on a Taliban creed - the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.

  Maureen Dowd

  Cute, Believe, Kids

  "Just think No" by Maureen Dowd, www.nytimes.com. August 21, 2012.

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• In medieval times the habit arose of expressing a man's wealth, no longer in terms of the amount of land in his estate, but of the amount of pepper in his pantry. One way of saying that a man was poor was to say that he lacked pepper. The wealthy lacked pepper. The wealthy kept large stores of pepper in their houses, and let it be known that it was there: it was a guarantee of solvency.

  Waverley Root

  Food, Men, Land

  6 Copy quote

• The medieval Church believed that the resurrection of Christ marked a new time for all of humanity.

  Timothy Radcliffe

  Humanity, Church, Resurrection

  49 Copy quote

• A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.

  Vince Lombardi

  Football, Motivational Sports, School

  24 Copy quote

• The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge. The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.

  Thomas Huxley

  Knowledge, College, Looks

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• The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Church was my first book and I would think it is still my most important book.

  John McGahern

  Book, Thinking, Church

  6 Copy quote

• Krakow is one of my favorite places on earth. It is a medieval city full of young people. A wonderful, striking combination.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Cities, People, Favorite Places

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• We exist in a bizarre combination of Stone Age emotions, medieval beliefs, and god-like technology.

  E. O. Wilson

  Technology, Age, Stones

  "The Great Matrix of Being" by William Grassie, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 26, 2013.

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• Ancient metaphysics underwent many changes at the hands of medieval thinkers who brought it in line with the dominant religious and theological movements of their day.

  Wilhelm Dilthey

  Religious, Hands, Movement

  Wilhelm Dilthey, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Frithjof Rodi (1991). “Introduction to the Human Sciences”, p.59, Princeton University Press

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• Every man should arm himself as quickly as he could, and come to the King.

  Charles William Chadwick Oman

  Kings, War, Men

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• To the medieval mind the possibility of doubt did not exist.

  William Manchester

  Doubt, Mind, Possibility

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• That a thing made by hand, the work and thought of a single craftsman, can endure much longer than its maker, through centuries in fact, can survive natural catastrophe, neglect, and even mistreatment, has always filled me with wonder. Sometimes in museums, looking at a humble piece of pottery from ancient Persia or Pompeii, or a finely wrought page from a medieval illuminated manuscript toiled over by a nameless monk, or a primitive tool with a carved handle, I am moved to tears. The unknown life of the maker is evanescent in its brevity, but the work of his or her hands and heart remains.

  Susan Vreeland

  Heart, Humble, Hands

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• In most cases, obviously, soldiers fought because a government drafted them and gave them a rifle. At every point too, we see the role of nationalistic sentiment, commercial rivalries, and simple greed. But can we ever separate out such motives from the religious? Was that not also true of the medieval crusades?

  Philip Jenkins

  Religious, Simple, Government

  Interview with Scott McKnight, www.patheos.com. January 23, 2016.

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• There was a time in medieval England when they had wandering minstrels ... A wandering minstrel would have been Frank Sinatra's counterpart had he lived during the time of Henry II in 1190 or 1180.

  Frank Sinatra, Jr.

  England, Minstrels, Wander

  Source: www.news-journalonline.com

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• Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter.

  Joe Randazzo

  Laughter, Soul, Needs

  "Former 'Onion' editor: Freedom of speech cannot be killed" by Joe Randazzo, www.msnbc.com. January 7, 2015.

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• I think it modern society as a whole, but definitively in Brazil, spaces are so well divided and there are so many barriers, and so many divisions, so many lines and so many borderlines, basically telling you that you should be here but not here. This is my space and this is your space, and this is expressed very dramatically in architecture, we have a very kind of aggressive, almost medieval concept for architecture, which is basically keeping people out. So you get high walls, fences, and electric fences, and divisions like that.

  Kleber Mendonca Filho

  Wall, Thinking, Space

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• To the medieval mind a liberty was a right to the enjoyment of a specific property It was a freedom to do something with one's own without interference by the king or any other man.

  Arthur Bryant

  Kings, Men, Mind

  Arthur Bryant (1985). “Set in a silver sea: the island peoples from earliest times to the fifteenth century”

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• I was in the black silence of a medieval street, and blindly I followed its sharp turns, comforted by the height of its narrow tenements, which seemed at any moment capable of falling together, closing this alleyway under indifferent stars like a seam.

  Anne Rice

  Stars, Fall, Silence

  Anne Rice (2011). “The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned”, p.253, Ballantine Books

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• The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Art, Pain

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.208, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The pressure to make public retractions of past statements - there's something medieval about it. What does it mean, anyway, to 'retract' what you've said? How can anyone state categorically that a thought he once had is no longer valid? In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted.

  Milan Kundera

  Mean, Past, Ideas

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• No stigma attaches to the love of money in America, and provided it does not exceed the bounds imposed by public order, it is held in honor. The American will describe as noble and estimable ambition that our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Ambition, America, Order

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• Ah. Medieval-style ransom.” Toot looked confused. “He did run some, but I stopped him, my lord. Like, just now. In front of you. Right over there.” There were several conspicuous sounds behind me, the loudest from my apprentice, and I turned to eye everyone else. They were all either covering smiles or holding them back— poorly. “Hey, peanut gallery,” I said. “This isn’t as easy as I’m making it look.” “You’re doing fine,” Karrin said, her eyes twinkling. I sighed. “Come on, Toot,” I said, and walked over to Hook.

  Jim Butcher

  Running, Confused, Eye

  8 Copy quote