Quotessence
Home / Topics / Byzantine Quotes

Byzantine Quotes

Browse 18 quotes about Byzantine.

Byzantine Quotes

“To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam, but even in the literatures of the Coptic and other Christian churches, of the Byzantines, of the Jews, or anyone else who might have thought the destruction of a great library worthy of comment. That the story still survives, and is repeated, despite all these objections, is testimony to the enduring power of a myth.”

StillsStoriesMightChristianLiteratureChurchAcceptingRichEventsDestructionHistoricalIslamEndureLibraryJewScaryWorthyMythDespiteDramaticCommentTestimonyMedievalObjectionsUnnoticedChristian ChurchAlexandriaByzantine
Author:Bernard Lewis
Create image

“In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europehas endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form.”

MayArtProblemFormArtistForgetGrowingFinePureProfoundEndureWitNewspapersDiscussionMeritComplexityMapsIdleThreateningByzantine
Author:Marcel Proust
Create image

“The Byzantines hammered away at their hard and orthodox symbols, because they could not be in a mood to believe that men could take a hint. The moderns drag out into lengths and reels of extravagance their new orthodoxy of being unorthodox, because they also cannot give a hint -- or take a hint. Yet all perfect and well-poised art is really a hint.”

MenGivingBelieveWellsArtHardPerfectArt IsMoodSymbolsLengthOrthodoxDragHintsOrthodoxyExtravaganceHammeredUnorthodoxByzantine
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
Create image

“My life in Greece influenced what I am. My father was in the left because he was against the king and his family, who had created a war against the Turks at the beginning of the last century to revive the Byzantine Empire. For three years, there was fighting, and all my father's friends died. So he hated the royal family.”

YearsWarLastsFightingThreeFatherLeftCenturyKingsDiedHatedEmpiresThree YearsRoyalGreeceReviveRoyal FamilyByzantineFriend Died
Author:Costa-Gavras
Create image

“I've had lots of discussions with my Muslim brothers and sisters who have said to me, "Christianity is a white man's religion" But I'm like, "how is that possible when Christianity went into Africa before it ever went into central Europe?" Even the first people to become a Christian nation were not Romans, they weren't the Byzantines either, they weren't the Greeks... the first people to claim a Christian empire were the Armenians.”

PeopleMenFirstsSaidChristianNationsWhiteChristianityBrotherEuropeClaimsDiscussionGreekEmpiresWhite ManBrothers And SistersArmeniansChristian NationByzantine
Author:Immortal Technique
Create image

“Once I spoke about this subject among a group of English intellectuals. One of them was a professor on Roman Law at one of the leading British universities. I asked him,what was the official language of the Byzantine Empire? He said, maybe sometime in the sixth or the seventh century.The Justinian Codex, the rule of law in the Byzantine Empire which was produced by Emperor Justinian, it was written in Latin.And he looked at me ,he knew that I knew already that the only original copy was found in the beginning of the sixteenth century.”

SaidLawFoundLanguageWrittenGroupsSubjectsCenturyOriginalsUniversityBritishOfficialsEmpiresSpokesCopiesLatinProfessorsEmperorRule Of LawByzantineJustinian
Author:Garry Kasparov
Create image

“The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire.”

KnowsStatesLibertyTaxesWestPopulationLibertarianErasProductiveEmpiresHistorianLibertarianismEasternRoman EmpireBureaucratsSuccessorsProliferationGreat LibertarianByzantine
Author:William Henry Chamberlin
Create image

“I suppose the most marked example of color as structure is in the Byzantine use of mosaic decoration that becomes architecture. The decoration of the interiors so related to the form that they fuse. In less elaborate interior design this is always the ideal approach to color - used not only as just color alone.”

UseFormUsedExampleDesignColorApproachIdealsStructureArchitectureRelatedInteriorsInterior DesignDecorationFuseMosaicsByzantine
Author:Van Day Truex
Create image