Byzantium Quotes

1. "Who built Thebes of the seven gates?In the books you will find the name of kings.Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?And Babylon, many times demolished.Who raised it up so many times? In what housesOf gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finishedDid the masons go? Great RomeIs full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whomDid the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song,Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled AtlantisThe night the ocean engulfed itThe drowning still bawled for their slaves."
Author: Bertolt Brecht

2. "Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full or choice, free to visit the stately pleasure domes, make love in the morning, sketch a bell tower, read a history of Byzantium, stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna dei fusi.' You open, as in childhood, and--for a time--receive this world. There's visceral aspect, too--the huntress who is free. Free to go, free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth."
Author: Frances Mayes

3. "The sciences were financially supported, honoured everywhere, universally pursued; they were like tall edifices supported by strong foundations. Then the Christian religion appeared in Byzantium and the centres of learning were eliminated, their vestiges effaced and the edifice of Greek learning was obliterated. Everything the ancient Greeks had brought to light vanished, and the discoveries of the ancients were altered out of recognition."
Author: Mas'udi

4. "Like most Istanbul Turks I had little interest in Byzantium as a child. I associated the word with spooky, bearded, black-robed Greek Orthodox priests, with the aqueducts that still ran through the city, with the Hagia Sophia and the red brick walls of old churches. To me, these were remnants of an age so distant there was little need to know about it. Even the Ottomans who conquered Byzantium seemed very far away."
Author: Orhan Pamuk

5. "Once out of nature I shall never takeMy bodily form from any natural thing,But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths makeOf hammered gold and gold enamellingTo keep a drowsy Emperor awake;Or set upon a golden bough to singTo lords and ladies of ByzantiumOf what is past, or passing, or to come."
Author: W.B. Yeats

6. "Before me floats an image, man or shade,Shade more than man, more image than a shade;For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-clothMay unwind the winding path;A mouth that has no moisture and no breathBreathless mouths may summon;("Byzantium")"
Author: W.B. Yeats

7. "Across the broken apses and shattered naves of a hundred ruined Byzantine churches, the same smooth, cold, neo-classical faces of the saints and apostles stare down like a gallery of deaf mutes; and through this thundering silence the everyday reality of life in the Byzantine provinces remains persistently difficult to visualise. The sacred and aristocratic nature of Byzantine art means that we have very little idea of what the early Byzantine peasant or shopkeeper looked like; we have even less idea of what he thought, what he longed for, what he loved or what he hated.Yet through the pages of The Spiritual Meadow one can come closer to the ordinary Byzantine than is possible through virtually any other single source.Dalrymple, William (2012-06-21). From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (Text Only) (Kindle Location 248). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition."
Author: William Dalrymple

8. "Mesir telah menjadi poros sejarah dunia dan peradaban manusia ribuan tahun lamanya semenjak era Firaun, Yunani, Romawi, Qibti dan Byzantium. Mesir telah memberikan pemikiran yang cemerlang kepada dunia dan juga menjadi pusat dunia Islam serta pelopor bangsa Arab. Sekiranya tidak ada kontribusi Mesir maka dunia dan peradaban Islam telah lama lenyap. Mesirlah yang berhasil mengalahkan bangsa Tartar di Ain Jalut dan menyelamatkan kebudayaan Islam dari kehancuran total. Mesir pula yang menyelamatkan dunia Islam dalam Perang Salib di Hittin dan wilayah-wilayah lainnya. Eksistensi al-Azhar as-Syarif telah menyelamatkan identitas kebudayaan Arab dari proses ‘Turkinisasi' yang dilancarkan oleh Dinasti Uthmaniyah. Jadi, dalam keadaan apa pun Mesir akan tetap menjadi jantung dunia Arab."
Author: Yusri Abdul Ghani Abdullah

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