Quotes from Titus Burckhardt

Beauty always represents an inward and inexhaustible equilibrium of forces; and this overwhelms our soul, since it can neither be calculated nor mechanically produced. A sense of beauty can therefore permit us the direct experience of relationships before we can perceive them, in a differentiated manner, with our discursive reason; in this, incidentally, there is a defence for our own physical and psychic well-being, something that we cannot neglect with impunity.

St. Hierotheos, the great teacher quoted by Dionysius in his book on Divine Names: "As form giving form to all that is formless, in so far as It is the principle of form, the Divine Nature of the Christ is none the less formless in all that has form, since It transcends all form....

True symbolism depends on the fact that things, which may differ from one another in time, space, material nature, and many other limitative characteristics, can possess and exhibit the same essential quality.

Toutefois, l'architecture musulmane connaît également un plan concentrique, celui du mausolée recouvert d'une coupole. Le prototype de ce plan se retrouve aussi bien dans l'art byzantin comme dans l'art asiatique, où il symbolise l'union du ciel et de la terre, le soubassement recangulaire correspondant à la terre et la coupole sphérique au ciel.

Si la royauté était sacrée, le roi ne l'était pas pour autant ; les hommes du Moyen Age savaient faire la distinction entre la fonction et celui qui l'exerçait.

Whereas previously men were differentiated only by their culture, the community is all of sudden split into economically determined classes and, with the cheap products of the factory, a poverty without beauty invades the homes; ugly, senseless, and comfortless poverty is the most widespread of all modern achievements.

Selon toutes les prophéties, le dépôt sacré de la Tradition intégrale subsistera jusqu'à la fin du cycle ; cela signifie qu'il y aura toujours quelque part une porte ouverte. Pour les hommes capables de dépasser le plan des écorces et animés d'une volonté singulière, ni la décadence du monde environnant, ni l'appartenance à tel peuple ou tel milieu, ne constituent des obstacles absolus.

What surprises historians of language is that Arabic has been able to preserve a morphology already exemplified by Hammurabi's code in the nineteenth or eighteenth century B.C., and a phonetic system which perpetuates, apart from one single sound, the very rich sound range borne witness to by the most ancient Semitic alphabets discovered.

In reality, the apparent 'objectivity' of modern architecture is merely a mysticism in reverse, a congealed sentimentality disguised as objectivity; moreover one has seen often enough just how quickly this attitude is converted, in its protagonists, into the most changeable and arbitrary of subjectivisms.

It is necessarily so, since every traditional art obeys a particular spiritual economy that limits its themes and means of expression, so that an abandonment of that economy almost immediately releases new and apparently unlimited artistic possibilities.

Common quicksilver exhibits a great 'desire' to combine with related metals. With quicksilver, metal workers can make gold and silver liquid. Quicksilver amalgam has been used since early times to gild metal objects. After application of the liquid amalgam, the quicksilver can be eliminated by fire, and the gold remains. Gold can also be extracted from other minerals by washing with quicksilver.

To be precise: there is no spiritual path outside the following traditions or religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism; but Hinduism is closed for those who have not been born into a Hindu caste, and Taoism is inaccessible.

en terre d'Islam,] la distinction entre le sacré et le profane n'existe normalement que dans l'usage que l'on fait des œuvres d'art et non dans leurs formes : une maison n'est pas bâtie dans un style différent de celui d'une mosquée.