Best 88 quotes in «renaissance quotes» category

The main difference between the Carolingian Renaissance and Christian antiquity lies precisely in the fact that it does not simply continue but that it rediscovers the Roman tradition. For the first time classical antiquity becomes a cultural experience with which is connected the consciousness of having rediscovered, in fact of having reacquired, something that had been lost. This experience indicates the birth of Western man,54 since it is not the actual possession but the struggle for the possession of classical culture which is his distinguishing mark.

The medieval period based its scriptural exegesis upon the Vulgate translation of the Bible. There was no authorized version of this text, despite the clear need for a standardized text that had been carefully checked against its Hebrew and Greek originals. A number of versions of the text were in circulation, their divergences generally being overlooked. It was not until 1592 than an 'official' version of the text was produced by the church authorities, sensitive to the challenges to the authority of the Vulgate by Renaissance humanist scholars and Protestant theologians.

The 'Renaissance' West Butchered the Rest. If I had to choose between an erudite Aristotle and an unknown ‘soulless’ black slave I would choose the latter. The ascendancy of the West was on a heap of bodies of slaves and trampled humanity through colonization

The Renaissance was not a civilization of small shopkeepers and artisans, nor of a well-to-do, half-educated middle class, but rather the jealously gaurded possession of a highbrow and Latinized elite. This consisted mainly of those classes of society which were associated with the humanistic and Neeplatonic movement - a uniform and, on the whole, like-minded intelligentsia such as, for example, the clergy, taken as a totality, had never been. The important works of art were intended for this circle. The broader masses either had no knowledge at all of them or appreciated them inadequately and from a non-artistic point of view, finding their own aesthetic pleasure in inferior products. This was the origin of that unbridgeable gulf between an educated minority and an uneducated majority which had never been known before to this extent and which was to be such a decisive factor in the whole future development of art.

These two developments throw light on what is perhaps the most fundamental difference between the Renaissance and all previous periods of art. We have repeatedly seen that there were these circumstances which could compel the artist to make a distinction between the "technical" proportions and the "objective;" the influence of organic movement, the influence of perspective foreshortening, and the regard for the visual impression of the beholder. These three factors of variation have one thing in common: they all presuppose the artistic recognition of subjectivity. Organic movement introduces into the calculus of artistic composition the subjective will and the subjective emotions of the thing represented; foreshortening the subjective visual experience of the artist; and those "eurhythmic" adjustments which alter that which is right in favor of what seems right, the subjective visual experience of a potential beholder. And it is the Renaissance which, for the first time, not only affirms but formally legitimizes and rationalizes these three forms of subjectivity.

The whore or the saint: these seemed to be the prototypes set up by the Church's historic misogyny. But was there no alternative model to follow? Yes, for Anne had seen for herself that it was possible to be an independent thinker, set free from the pattern of sinful Eve or patient Griselda. She had been in the company of clever, strong-willed women like the Regent Margaret of Austria and Margaret of Navarre. The influence of evangelism had enabled women of character to take an alternative path, one that offered Anne Boleyn a different future.

This was the end of the Renaissance. Culture, once beloved and fostered by the papacy, opened the way to dangerous freedom. Then - as now - knowledge, culture, intellectual curiosity became suspect, even dangerous to oppressive regimes: knowledge leading to engaging the mind into reasoning, culture into wanting to know more, intellectual curiosity sharpening the appetite for information, fact. Ignorance was considered safe and political oppression went hand in hand with the congregation of the Inquisition.

We are fascinated by Ramses as Renaissance Christians were by the American Indians, those (human?) beings who had never known the word of Christ.

About the scientific revolution: it "outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes".

Although I adore the Italian High Renaissance, I'd rather look at Mannerism. The former is ordered, integrated, otherworldly, and grandiose; it leaves you feeling hungry for something flawed and of-the-flesh.

...the pride taken by the Italians in their gifted women is among the most important facts in the history of their Renaissance.

The Renaissance (like Greek democracy or the fledgling American states) was a construct that applied mainly to privileged men.

The Renaissance was the culture of a wealthy and powerful upper class, on the crest of the wave which was whipped up by the storm of new economic forces. The masses who did not share the wealth and power of the ruling group had lost the security of their former status and had become a shapeless mass, to be flattered or to be threatened—but always to be manipulated and exploited by those in power. A new despotism arose side by side with the new individualism. Freedom and tyranny, individually and disorder, were inextricably interwoven. The Renaissance was not a culture of small shopkeepers and petty bourgeois but of wealthy nobles and burghers. Their economic activity and their wealth gave them a feeling of freedom and a sense of individually. But at the same time, these same people had lost something: the security and feeling of belonging which the medieval social structure had offered. They were more free, but they were also more alone. They used their power and wealth to squeeze the last ounce of pleasure out of life; but in doing so, they had to use ruthlessly every means, from physical torture to psychological manipulation, to rule over the masses and to check their competitors within their own class. All human relationships were poisoned by this fierce life-and-death struggle for the maintenance of power and wealth. Solidarity with one's fellow man—or at least with the members of one's own class—was replaced by a cynical detached attitude; other individuals were looked upon as "objects" to be used and manipulated, or they were ruthlessly destroyed if it suited one's own ends. The individual was absorbed by a passionate egocentricity, an insatiable greed for power and wealth. As a result of all this, the successful individual's relation to his own self, his sense of security and confidence were poisoned too. His own self became as much an object of manipulation to him as other persons had become. We have reasons to doubt whether the powerful masters of Renaissance capitalism were as happy and as secure as they are often portrayed. It seems that the new freedom brought two things to them: an increased feeling of strength and at the same time an increased isolation, doubt, scepticism, and—resulting from all these—anxiety. It is the same contradiction that we find in the philosophical writings of the humanists. Side by side with their emphasis on human dignity, individuality, and strength, they exhibited insecurity and despair in their philosophy.

There was a time in the ancient world - a very long time - in which the central cultural problem must have seemed an inexhaustible outpouring of books. Where to put them all? How to organize them on the groaning shelves? How to hold the profusion of knowledge in one's head? The loss of this plenitude would have been virtually inconceivable to anyone living in its midst. Then, not all at once but with the cumulative force of a mass extinction, the whole enterprise came to an end. What looked stable turned out to be fragile, and what had seemed for all time was only for the time being.

The soul exists partly in eternity and partly in time.

The true Renaissance person is endowed with panoramic attention.... The habit of noticing the ensemble of everything and its constituent parts is a matter of will, not of innate aptitude. It involves the conscious noticing of things and the gaps that separate and connect them.

Those who like to interpret historical facts symbolically may recognize in this the spirit of a specifically "modern" conception of the world which permits the subject to assert itself against the object as something independent and equal; whereas classical antiquity did not as yet permit the explicit formulation of this contrast; and whereas the Middle Ages believed the subject as well as the object to be submerged in a higher unity.

We have given to thee, Adam, no fixed seat, no form of thy own, no gift peculiarly thine, that thou mayest feel as thine own, have as thine own, possess as thine own, the seat, the form, the gifts which thou thyself shalt desire. A limited nature in other creatures is confined within the laws written down by Us. In conformity with thy free judgment, in whose hands I have placed thee, thou art confined by no bounds; and thou will fix the limits of nature for thyself. I have placed thee at the centre of the world, that from there thou mayest more conveniently look around and see whatsoever is in the world. Neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal have We made thee. Thou, like a judge appointed for being honourable, art the molder and maker of thyself.

We've never heard About a marvel quite so great, For all the heroes who have lived In history can't measure up In bravery against the Maid.

A glorious place, a glorious age, I tell you! A very Neon renaissance - And the myths that actually touched you at that time - not Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses and Aeneas - but Superman, Captain Marvel, and Batman.

English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background.

Every renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free.

I always wanted to be a renaissance woman, do as many things as I possibly can and hopefully do them well or don't do them at all.

I don't think I am going to do pictures which are anything like Renaissance art.

If painters could be compared to filmmakers, Bosch is the Hype Williams of renaissance painters. With Bosch, there's always a narrative that is very nonlinear - and that's the essence of a good music video.

I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.

In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters.

I think there's some great stuff coming. I do feel that. I think we have reached our Harlem Renaissance.

I went into Harvard one way and came out a different person... It's the air at Harvard; it's like a Renaissance court.

Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves. They made shoes, plucked chickens, or created value in some way for other people, who then traded or paid for those goods and services.

I'm very moved by Renaissance music, but I still love to play hard rock - though only if it's sophisticated and has some thought behind it.

I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

I was determined to make Renaissance Man Food Services and Herschel's Famous 34 major players in a very tough industry.

Let us help the phoenix to rise from the ashes; let us help lay the foundation for a new renaissance; let us help to accelerate the spiritual awakening until it lifts us into the golden age which would come.

Marxism is like a classical building that followed the Renaissance; beautiful in its way, but incapable of growth.

Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.

(on asparagus) Europeans of the Renaissance swore by it as an aphrodisiac, and the church banned it from nunneries.

PowerPoint is like being trapped in the style of early Egyptian flatland cartoons rather than using the more effective tools of Renaissance visual representation.

Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done, And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly.

National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.

Rapunzel is a bit more relatable than the other princesses, especially because she doesn't even know that she's a princess until the very end of the movie. I like to think of her as the bohemian Disney princess. She's barefoot and living in a tower. She paints and reads... She's a Renaissance woman.

Since the Renaissance, people have had to get used to living their life on a random planet in the vast galaxy.

That's where I got the idea to paint the walls of the gallery with varied colours [at the Whitechapel show]. I tried to figure out how all these Renaissance paintings manage to work together.

Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.

Small pictures since the Renaissance are like novels; large pictures are like dramas in which one participates in a direct way.

The time to recognize the power of community is here again. Not as some romanticized renaissance from times past, but as a necessarily new and innovative response to "life as it is offering itself to us.

The Renaissance of Europe did not take place in the 15th century. Rather it began when Europe learned from the culture of the Arabs. The cradle of European awakening is not Italy. It is the Muslim Spain.

We'll be potters, we'll be painters, we'll be textile designers, we'll be jewelers, we'll be a little this, a little of that. We were going to be the renaissance people [when we were young].

Warhol turned to photographs of stars, as the Renaissance turned to antiquities, to find images of gods.

The Renaissance… was based on a new idea of the importance of the individual. But this was a fragile foundation, because individuals depended on constant applause and admiration to sustain them. There is a shortage of applause in the world, and there is not enough respect to go around.