Quotes About Antiquity

Ancient monuments 300 to 1000-plus years old are never 'renovated,' only 'restored,' a distinction that escapes the babus.

had almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity

There are, broadly speaking, three directly analogous progressions inthe history of art: in Antiquity, from the blockiness of Egyptian art to the loose, painterly handling of Roman landscape frescoes; in the Middle Ages, from the tectonic emphasis of Ottonian art to the flamboyance of late Gothic; and in later times, from early Renaissance linearity to the sparkling web of light spun by the Rococo. The wheel turns full circle, but more rapidly each time.

Es wäre lächerliche und ungerechtfertigte Selbstüberhebung, wenn wir annehmen wollten, wir seien energischer oder intelligenter als das Altertum - unser Wissensstoff hat zugenommen, nicht aber die Intelligenz. Darum sind wir neuen Ideen gegenüber gerade so borniert und unfähig wie die Menschen in den dunklesten Zeiten des Altertums. An Wissen sind wir reich geworden, nicht aber an Weisheit.

The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul.

I am rather more apt to read old books than new ones.

The game of chess is the most fascinating and intellectual pastime which the wisdom of antiquity has bequeathed to us.

I like portraying heroes of antiquity whose values were grander and more spectacular than those of today.

We could imagine nothing pleasanter than to spend all of our lives digging for relics of the past.

In antiquity there was only silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.

...the holy men sat in an atmosphere reeking of antiquity, so thick with the dust of ages that you can't see through it -nor can they.

Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.

I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs and a continual study of antiquity, which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence.

I enter the ancient courts of the men of antiquity where affectionately received by them I pasture on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born, where I am not too timid to speak with them and ask them about the reasons for their actions; and they in their courtesy answer me; and for four hours of time I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, I do not fear poverty, death does not dismay me; I transfer all of myself into them...

Men always praise antiquity and fault the present, although not always reasonably, and they are partisans of things past such that not only do they celebrate those ages that they know from what historians have preserved of them, but also those that as old men they recall having seen in their youth. And if this opinion of theirs is false, as it is most of the time, I am persuaded that there are various causes that lead them into this deception.

I'm more inclined towards old churches and dusty museums.

For the male who dominates and writes, or by writing dominates, the woman has always been portrayed with hostility from the earliest times. Let us not be deceived by angelic descriptions of women. On the contrary, precisely because great literature is dominated by sweet, gentle creatures, the world of satire—which is that of the popular imagination—continually demonizes the woman, from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and up to modern times.

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

Will's face turned grave. "Be careful with it, though. It's six hundred years old and the only copy of its kind. Losing or damaging it is punishable by death under the Law." Tessa thrust the book away from her as if it were on fire. "You can't be serious." "You're right. I'm not." Will leapt down from the ladder and landed lightly in front of her. "You do believe everything I say, though, don't you? Do I seem unusually trustworthy to you, or are you just a naive sort?

the term 'lunatic' derives from luna, the Latin word for moon). Many writers, from antiquity onwards, maintained that the mad were directly affected by the phases of the moon, with the full moon being the cause of the greatest agitation.

Old things have strange hungers.

Virtue became less the harsh and martial self-sacrifice of antiquity and more the modern willingness to get along with others for the sake of peace and prosperity.

The year 2008 was a reminder to those who had forgotten that there is such a thing as history and that the cycle of famine and feast in commerce, first identified in antiquity and well understood in the Middle Ages, was not suddenly abolished in modern times.

In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.