Quotessence
Home / Topics / Medieval Quotes

Medieval Quotes

Browse 378 quotes about Medieval.

Related topics

PeopleWorldMedieval TimesModernIdeasIfsThinkingAgeCenturyHumansArtMindRealWarAncientChurchDoeMadeWholeBeliefKingsMenRealityReligiousBookChristianityCitiesFeelsFormHas BeensKnowsMeanPeriodsStills

Medieval Quotes

“A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a pig-rooting, horse-snorting, band-playing, voice-screaming medieval get-together of greed, practical lust, compromised idealism, career-advancement, meeting, feud, vendetta, conciliation, of rabble-rousers, fist fights (as it used to be), embraces, drunks (again as it used to be) and collective rivers of animal sweat.”

TogetherPoliticalUsedFightingFearVoiceAnimalCareersAtheismBandDirectorsRiversHorseEmbraceMeetingsGreedRageLustPracticalsUsed To BeCorporationsBoardsCollectivesSweatConventionsPigsIdealismFistsAdvancementMedievalGet TogetherBoard Of DirectorsCarnivalsVendettaFeudsFiesta
Book:The idol and the octopus: political writings, on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
Create image

“According to the Tax Foundation, taxes now consume more than 38% of the average family's budget. That is more than is spent on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined. Compare this to the plight of medieval serfs. They only had to give the lord of the manor one-third of their output - and they were considered slaves. So what does that make us?”

GivingDoeLibertyLordTaxesEconomicsThirdsFoundationSlaveAverageLibertarianCompareBudgetsClothingsLibertarianismHousingMedievalTransportationOutputPlightSerfs
Author:Daniel J. Mitchell
Create image

“...the history of early-medieval Arabia is nearly all legend. Like Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and other founders of patriarchal religions, Mohammed lacks real verification. There is no reliable information about his life or teachings. Most stories about him are as apocryphal as the story that his coffin hangs forever in mid-air "between heaven and earth," like the bodies of ancient sacred kings.”

RealStoriesBodyEarthJesusHeavenForeverAirTeachingInformationKingsSacredIslamAncientLegendsFoundersMedievalArabiaHeaven And EarthCoffinsVerification
Author:Barbara G. Walker
Create image

“The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing cowards by a whip-cracking trainer, is primitive and medieval. It stems from the old idea that we are superior to other species and have the right to hold dominion over them.”

HumansIdeasAnimalPowerfulActingIndustrySpeciesSuperiorsBeastPetCowardVeganPrimitiveStemThrillingMedievalDominionWhipsTrainersClumsyWild AnimalOld Ideas
Author:Desmond Morris
Create image

“In a high tech world the cure for the tragic shortcomings and perilous fallacies of human intuition is education, but education in economics, evolutionary biology, probability and statistics - unfortunately most High School and College curricula have barely changed since Medieval times!”

WorldHumansSchoolChangedCollegeHigh SchoolEconomicsIntuitionCuresTragicBiologyStatisticsProbabilityMedievalShortcomingsFallacyEvolutionary BiologyMedieval Times
Author:Steven Pinker
Create image

“Why, when the economist gives advice to his society, is he so often cooly ignored? He never ceases to preach free trade, and protectionism is growing in the United States. He deplores the perverse effects of minimum wage laws, and the legal minimum is regularly raised each 3 or 5 years. He brands usury laws as a medieval superstition, but no state hurries to repeal its law.”

GivingYearsStatesPhilosophyLawPoliticalUnitedUnited StatesGrowingAdviceEffectsEconomicsTradeRaisedCeaseBrandsSuperstitionsMinimumIgnoredEconomistMedievalMinimum WageFree TradeUsuryProtectionism
Author:George Stigler
Create image

“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.”

BelieveLooksMayKidsFacesYoungHousePerfectLeaderGenerationsModernRepublicanGayBillsConservativeHeavyCoreImmigrationHipsCuteShirtsAbortionImmigrantsMetalsAdamCreedsHarshMedievalJamDinosaursTalibanNew GenerationIpodsAdam And EveSponsorsAmiableHeavy MetalEvermorePoloAnti AbortionAnti GayCute Kid
Author:Maureen Dowd
Create image

“Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary.”

PeopleShouldLooksArtBeautifulWaterResultsCitiesBuildingAbuseShameStructureStuckNewspapersComicOver ItChicagoTowersAmazedTornRidiculeMachineryCastlesPositivelyGothicMedievalAmusingEnviousDrearyMonstrosityBeautiful City
Author:Oscar Wilde
Create image

“Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”

IfsHeartGovernmentRememberDiesNationsModernDeserveLoyaltyRationalLive ByMedievalObsoleteTrue Patriotism
Book:Life as I find it [by] Mark Twain [pseud.] Essays, sketches, tales, and other material, the majority of which is now published in book form for the first time: edited, with an introd. and notes
Create image

“Comics, which are really best described as an arrangement of images in a sequence that tell a story - an idea - is a very old form of graphic communication. It began with the hieroglyphics in Egypt, it first appeared in a recognizable form in the Medieval times as copper plates produced by the Catholic church to tell morality stories.”

FirstsIdeasStoriesFormChurchCommunicationMoralityCatholicPlatesArrangementsEgyptSequenceMedievalGraphicCatholic ChurchCopperHieroglyphicsMedieval Times
Author:Will Eisner
Create image

“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should guard against the encroachment of religion in areas where it has no place, and in particular the control of education by religious authority. The attempts to ban the teaching of evolution or other scientific theories -- a feeble echo of medieval church tyranny and hostility to learning, but an echo nonetheless are serious threats to freedom of inquiry and should be vigorously combated.”

ShouldChurchReligiousAtheismTeachingParticularSeriousTheoryEvolutionAuthorityAreasThreatAtheistPositive AtheismTyrannyEchoesAgnosticInquiryHostilityMedievalBansScientific TheoryEncroachment
Author:S. T. Joshi
Create image

“Though I like the various forms of football in the world, I don't think they begin to compare with these two great Anglo-Saxon ball games for sophisticated elegance and symbolism. Baseball and cricket are beautiful and highly stylized medieval war substitutes, chess made flesh, a mixture of proud chivalry and base - in both senses - greed. With football we are back to the monotonous clashing armor of the brontosaurus.”

ThinkingWorldMadeTwoWarBeautifulFormGamesFootballProudBaseballBallsGreedVariousFleshChessSensesCompareSubstitutesSophisticatedCricketEleganceMixturesMedievalArmorSymbolismMonotonousChivalryBall GamesMedieval WarAnglo Saxon
Author:John Fowles
Create image

“Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.”

MadeBookIdeasAgeTodayThreeSoundCenturyEventsConflictEndureSmellEnd TimesMedieval
Book:A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Create image

“During the shooting of a scene the director’s eye has to catch even the minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at the set. While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else. By doing this I sense instantly when something isn’t right. Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way. I believe this is what the medieval Noh playwright and theorist Zeami meant by ‘watching with a detached gaze.’”

WayBelieveLooksMeanDoeEyeActorsI BelieveNaturalFocusSceneDirectorsCamerasDetailsShootingFilmmakingRollingSomewhere ElseMedievalPlaywrightFixingDetachedTheoristsNoh
Author:Akira Kurosawa
Create image

“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets - as vast and indestructible as nature itself.”

WholeAgeUniverseStreetsBuildingAncientParisMassiveMedievalCathedralsCafesIndestructibleBoulevardFrance ParisStreets Of ParisParis Fashion
Book:The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned
Create image

“The 'medical examination' to which abductees are said to be subjected, often accompanied by sadistic sexual manipulation, is reminiscient of the medieval tales of encounters with demons. It makes no sense in a sophisticated or technical framework: any intelligent being equipped with the scientific marvels that UFOs possess would be in a position to achieve any of these alleged scientific objectives in a shorter time and with fewer risks.”

SaidWould BeRiskAchievePositionIntelligentMedicalTalesObjectivesEncountersDemonManipulationFewerSophisticatedFrameworkExaminationMedievalUfoSadisticAlien Abduction
Author:Jacques Vallee
Create image

“In medieval times, the Church used to sell 'indulgences' for money. This amounted to paying for some number of days' remission from purgatory, and the Church literally (and with breathtaking presumption) issued signed certificates specifying the number of days off that had been purchased. . . . And of all its money-making rip-offs, the selling of indulgences must surely rank among the greatest con tricks in history. . . .”

UsedReligionChurchNumbersSellsTricksSellingMaking MoneyRipIndulgenceMedievalPresumptionDays OffCertificatesPurgatoryBreathtakingRemissionMedieval Times
Author:Richard Dawkins
Create image

“It [the scientific revolution] outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom. . . . It looms so large as the real origin of the modern world and of the modern mentality that our customary periodization of European history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance.”

WorldRealScienceChristianityModernRevolutionHistoricalMereInternalsMentalityEpisodesModern WorldMedievalRenaissanceReformationChristendomDisplacementEuropean HistoryAnachronismScientific Revolution
Author:Herbert Butterfield
Create image

“In the index to the six hundred odd pages of Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History, abridged version, the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton do not occur yet their cosmic quest destroyed the medieval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet.”

IfsOrderCultureUniverseNamesSocialVisionStudyPlanetsHabitSixPagesHundredHistoricalSpeciesVersionsDestroyedMathematicalLandscapeOddCosmicTransformedQuestsOutlookMedievalNewtonSocial OrderCopernicus
Author:Arthur Koestler
Create image

“I don't know of a single instance of these Arab freedom fighters holding up pictures of bin Laden. I know many instances of them displaying American flags in Benghazi or painting 'Facebook' on their foreheads in Cairo. The idea of freedom . . . is absolutely contradictory to what bin Laden stood for, which was . . . taking Muslims back to some medieval theocracy and encouraging people to die not for freedom but to go to paradise and to kill innocent people along the way. The contrast is really striking.”

PeopleKnowsWayIdeasDiesPaintingInnocentInstanceFighterParadiseFlagsContrastContradictoryMedievalBin LadenForeheadsFreedom FighterAmerican FlagTheocracyCairoBenghazi
Author:Paul Wolfowitz
Create image

“Mine was not an Enlightened mind, I now was aware: it was a Gothic mind, medieval in its temper and structure. I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful.”

MindPerfectMysteryMinesColdTraditionOrganizationHarmonyStructureAwfulVarietyEnlightenedTemperGothicMedievalRegularity
Book:Confessions of a bohemian Tory: episodes and reflections of a vagrant career
Create image

“It is sad that while science moves ahead in exciting new areas of research, fine-tuning our knowledge of how life originated and evolved, creationists remain mired in medieval debates about angels on the head of a pin and animals in the belly of an Ark.”

ThinkingMovingAnimalFineResearchAngelAreasExcitingDebateBellyPinsMedievalTuningArkMoving AheadFine Tuning
Book:Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
Create image

“Enclosure, upon its completion, was the record which represented the achievement of all the musical goals I had been aiming at for the previous 5 years. It was recorded simultaneously with Black Knights' Medieval Chamber, and as different as the two albums appear to be, they represent one investigative creative thought process. What I learned from one fed directly into the other. Enclosure is presently my last word on the musical statement which began with PBX.”

YearsTwoDifferentLastsProcessGoalBlackCreativeRecordsAchievementMusicalAlbumsStatementsFedsLast WordsChamberKnightsMedievalCompletionThought ProcessCreative ThoughtEnclosure
Author:John Frusciante
Create image

“In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a 'dangerous form of spiritual alienation' -- a devaluing of the world and its creator.”

IfsWorldPersonsSpiritualFormDangerousCreatorBoredomSymptomsAlienationMedievalMedieval Times
Book:Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Create image

“I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldReasonEarthFallPeriodsEdgesInsanityFlatsMedievalPresent DayHereticFalling OffZen Motorcycle MaintenanceAnalogueEdge Of The World
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
Create image

“In the medieval tradition, Beksinski seems to believe art to be a forewarning about the fragility of the flesh– whatever pleasures we know are doomed to perish– thus, his paintings manage to evoke at once the process of decay and the ongoing struggle for life. They hold within them a secret poetry, stained with blood and rust.”

KnowsBelieveArtSeemsProcessPleasureSecretStruggleBloodPaintingTraditionFleshManageDecayDoomedOngoingMedievalEvokeRustFragility
Author:Guillermo del Toro
Create image