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Byzantium Quotes

Browse 28 quotes about Byzantium.

Byzantium Quotes

“In the square field of the game he has found the ground mirror of the circular plan of the heavenly sphere. Through play, he was becoming aware of the crux gemmata – the sign of Christ, and he created the letters of the Glagolitic script, and turned the trinitarian game into a tetragonic one. He had made the Glagolitic script, a game of four gospels in which the symbol of Christ’s name is placed. The Glagolitic is his game with three marbles – one for each of the messengers of the good news.”

ReadingLettersAlphabetScriptByzantiumSt CyrilCroatian CultureGlagolitic
Book:AZ
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“So we grew up with mythic dead To spoon upon midwestern bread And spread old gods' bright marmalade To slake in peanut-butter shade, Pretending there beneath our sky That it was Aphrodite's thigh... While by the porch-rail calm and bold His words pure wisdom, stare pure gold My grandfather, a myth indeed, Did all of Plato supersede While Grandmama in rockingchair Sewed up the raveled sleeve of care Crocheted cool snowflakes rare and bright To winter us on summer night. And uncles, gathered with their smokes Emitted wisdoms masked as jokes, And aunts as wise as Delphic maids Dispensed prothetic lemonades To boys knelt there as acolytes To Grecian porch on summer nights; Then went to bed, there to repent The evils of the innocent; The gnat-sins sizzling in their ears Said, through the nights and through the years Not Illinois nor Waukegan But blither sky and blither sun. Though mediocre all our Fates And Mayor not as bright as Yeats Yet still we knew ourselves. The sum? Byzantium. Byzantium.”

PoemSummertimeByzantiumMythologicalSymbolistsWaukegan
Book:Dandelion Wine
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“The sciences were financially supported, honoured everywhere, universally pursued; they were like tall edifices supported by strong foundations. Then the Christian religion appeared in Byzantium and the centres of learning were eliminated, their vestiges effaced and the edifice of Greek learning was obliterated. Everything the ancient Greeks had brought to light vanished, and the discoveries of the ancients were altered out of recognition.”

ScienceReligionChristianityAncient GreeceByzantium
Book:From The Meadows of Gold
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“There remain of Europe, first, Macedonia and the part of Thrace that are contiguous to it and extend as far as Byzantium; secondly, Greece; and thirdly, the Islands that are close by. Macedonia, of course, is a part of Greece, yet now, since I am following the nature and shape of the place geographically, I have decided to classify it apart from the rest of Greece and to join it with that part of Thrace.”

FirstsCoursesShapesEuropeDecidedFollowingIslandsGreeceMacedoniaByzantium
Author:Strabo
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“... woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium.... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art.”

NeedsMayChildrenDoeArtPoetrySexCreativityCreativePoetBabyLaborMetaphorMotherhoodPregnancyFulfillingPrivilegedSailingSlursYeatsByzantium
Author:Cynthia Ozick
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“Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full or choice, free to visit the stately pleasure domes, make love in the morning, sketch a bell tower, read a history of Byzantium, stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna dei fusi.' You open, as in childhood, and--for a time--receive this world. There's visceral aspect, too--the huntress who is free. Free to go, free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.”

WorldHomeFacesChoicesHoursMemoriesPleasureMorningChildhoodThis WorldReturnCreaturesAspectLaysReleaseStaringBellsTowersMaking LoveSpontaneityOne HourVisceralDomesGodlikeLeonardoHuntressByzantium
Author:Frances Mayes
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“That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations-at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unaging intellect.”

MenLongCountryYoungDeathSongDiesFallBornGenerationsTreeSeaDyingArmsSummerBirdCaughtFishesIntellectFleshSensualNeglectOld ManMonumentCrowdedSalmonFowlByzantiumMackerel
Author:William Butler Yeats
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