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Middle Ages Quotes

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Middle Ages Quotes

“Western elites - the beneficiaries of 60 years of peace and prosperity achieved by the sacrifices to defeat fascism and Communism - are unhappy in their late middle age, and show little gratitude for, or any idea about, what gave them such latitude. If they cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all.”

IfsYearsLittlesIdeasShowsAgeHistorySacrificeMiddleGratitudeLatePerfectionWesternDefeatProsperityUnhappyCommunismFascismElitesMiddle AgesLatitudeBeneficiaries
Author:Victor Davis Hanson
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“In the Middle Ages people believed that the earth was flat, for which they had at least the evidence of their senses: we believe it to be round, not because as many as 1 percent of us could give physical reasons for so quaint a belief, but because modern science has convinced us that nothing that is obvious is true, and that everything that is magical, improbable, extraordinary, gigantic, microscopic, heartless, or outrageous is scientific.”

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Author:George Bernard Shaw
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“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. I fear the disease is incurable.”

PeopleYearsAgeJobsYoungGreaterMiddleTravelDiseaseCalmEightCuresMaturityFiftyUrgesMatureRemedyAssuredMiddle AgesFeverTravel And TourismSenilityTravels With Charley
Book:Travels with Charley in Search of America
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“The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.”

IfsNeedsIdeasDoneAgeScienceDiesTurnsStrongSuccessfulMiddleAdventureComfortableSettlingVitalityMiddle AgesSettling DownCustodiansSenile
Book:Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead
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“During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas - which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science.”

IfsTryingKindIdeasAgeReligionCoursesPiecesAtheismCrazyMiddleIncreaseMethodAll KindsOrganizedMiddle AgesHornsSeparatingPotencyCrazy IdeasRhinoceros
Book:Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
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“If catastrophic geology had at times pushed Nature to almost indecent extremes of haste, uniformitarian geology, on the other hand, had erred in the opposite direction, and pictured Nature when she was 'young and wantoned [sic] in her prime', as moving with the lame sedateness of advanced middle age. It became necessary, therefore, as Dr. [Samuel] Haughton expresses it, 'to hurry up the phenomena'.”

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Author:William Johnson Sollas
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“Some years ago John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in an essay on his efforts at writing a history of economics: 'As one approaches the present, one is filled with a sense of hopelessness; in a year and possibly even a month, there is now more economic comment in the supposedly serious literature than survives from the whole of the thousand years commonly denominated as the Middle Ages ... anyone who claims to be familiar with it all is a confessing liar.' I believe that all physicists would subscribe to the same sentiments regarding their own professional literature. I do at any rate.”

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Author:Abraham Pais
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“During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries, Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue.”

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Author:Philip Khuri Hitti
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“...it would be a mistake...to ascribe to Roman legal conceptions an undivided sway over the development of law and institutions during the Middle Ages... The Laws of Moses as well as the laws of Rome contributed suggestions and impulse to the men and institutions which were to prepare the modern world; and if we could have but eyes to see... we should readily discover how very much besides religion we owe to the Jew.”

IfsMenWorldShouldWellsWould BeEyeAgeLawMistakeModernMiddleHe ManDevelopmentInstitutionsJewImpulseConceptionRomeSuggestionsJudaismModern WorldMiddle AgesMoses
Author:Woodrow Wilson
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“You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine. The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.”

LooksMadeSaidEndsDoneAgePurposeArtistChoicesFeltCompanyRecordsMiddleTalentMinesFemaleStonesSexualityJudgedRollingMiddle AgesRagsRolling StonesRecord CompaniesProverbialFemale Artists
Author:Sinead O'Connor
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“Dear Lord, who made the face of me not all that I would have it be, not really homely, only plain, but strong and patient in the main. Yet one, a man apart, who found me fair and gave his heart. Now Lord, that I have grown more sage . . . into middle age. I only ask, as face grows lines of countenance, it be described as kind; that wrinkles by my eyes will show a little humor as I go; that I may view my humble scene with glance of one content, serene, through grateful, shining eyes that see the blessings you have given me.”

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Author:Ruth Perry
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“Meanwhile, their [evolutionists] unproven theories will continue to be accepted by the learned and the illiterate alike as absolute truth, and will be defended with a frantic intolerance that has a parallel only in the bigotry of the darkest Middle Ages. If one does not accept evolution as an infallible dogma, implicitly and without question, one is regarded as an unenlightened ignoramus or is merely ignored as an obscurantist or a naive, uncritical fundamentalist.”

IfsDoeAgeAcceptingMiddleTheoryEvolutionAbsolutesAcceptedBigotryIntoleranceDogmaIgnoredNaiveParallelsMiddle AgesFundamentalistInfallibleIlliterateAbsolute TruthFrantic
Author:Alfred M. Rehwinkel
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