Italian Medieval Poetry Quotes

I felt for the tormented whirlwinds
Damned for their carnal sins
Committed when they let their passions rule their reason. ~ Dante Alighieri

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire.

...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ...

Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close ~ Linda H. Davis

And all the falling stars that I saw as a child, I found them at her feet, And my joy to watch her dance, Over them in her Carmel. She is the romance of a winter love story, The picture of a million memories, The blood of God flows through her heart, The space in between her arms, Is the doorway to heaven, The light for my mornings comes from her smile, Oh to love her is like a journey, A journey of a million miles… ~ Piyush Rohankar

In the medieval tradition, Beksinski seems to believe art to be a forewarning about the fragility of the flesh– whatever pleasures we know are doomed to perish– thus, his paintings manage to evoke at once the process of decay and the ongoing struggle for life. They hold within them a secret poetry, stained with blood and rust. ~ Guillermo Del Toro

Remember that a little learning can be a pleasant thing. Italy gives much, in beauty, gaiety, diversity of arts and landscapes, good humor and energy - willingly, without having to be coaxed or courted. Paradoxically, she requires (as do other countries, probably more so) and deserves some preparation as background to enhance her pleasures. It is almost impossible to read a total history of Italy; there was no united country until a hundred years ago, no single line of power, no concerted developments. It is useful, however, to know something about what made Siena run and stop, to become acquainted with the Estes and the Gonzagas, the Medicis and the Borgias, the names that were the local history. It helps to know something about the conflicts of the medieval church with the Holy Roman Empire, of the French, Spanish and early German kings who marked out large chunks of Italy for themselves or were invited to invade by a nervous Italian power. Above all, it helps to turn the pages of a few art and architecture books to become reacquainted with names other those of the luminous giants.

The informed visitors will not allow himself to be cowed by the deluge of art. See what interests or attracts you; there is no Italian Secret Service that reports on whether you have seen everything. If you try to see it all except as a possible professional task, you may come to resist it all. Relax, know what you like and don't like - not the worst of measures - and let the rest go. ~ Kate Simon

A souvenir meant for nostalgia, Wandering in the old world of catholic conscience, So petite but a requiem to promiscuous melancholy, The first cherries of spring reminds me of her lips, The peaches of autumn are her cheeks, She is the love that dwells on the long forgotten roads… ~ Piyush Rohankar

Medieval Italian life had recently become so fascinating for Vronsky that he even began wearing his hat and a wrap thrown over his shoulder in a medieval fashion, which was very becoming to him. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The Divine Comedy is a political poem and when you say poetry is not about - he's always quoted out of context, that "poetry makes nothing happen," that doesn't mean you shrug your shoulders and don't try to make anything happen. And Dante felt that poetry was engaged, there was a point of view; it's not my point of view, it's orthodox medieval Christianity, and I have my troubles with that. He didn't feel that you could just rule out so important a section of life - we care about these things, and it's out of caring about them that we write poetry. ~ W.S. Merwin

Books that Uncle bought in Odessa or acquired in Heidelberg, books that he discovered in Lausanne or found in Berlin or Warsaw, books he ordered from America and books the like of which exist nowhere but in the Vatican Library, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, classical and modern Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, medieval Arabic, Russian, English, German, Spanish, Polish, French, Italian, and languages and dialects I had never even heard of, like Ugaritic and Slovene, Maltese and Old Church Slavonic. ~ Amos Oz

Among Christians, only Protestants have ever believed that work smacks of salvation; the work and prayer of medieval Christendom were interspersed with festivals. The ancient Greeks sought salvation in philosophy, the Indians in meditation, the Chinese in poetry and the love of nature. The pygmies of the African rainforests – now nearly extinct – work only to meet the needs of the day, and spend most of their lives idling. ~ John N. Gray

Some of the greatest mathematical minds of all ages, from Pythagoras and Euclid in ancient Greece, through the medieval Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa and the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler, to present-day scientific figures such as Oxford physicist Roger Penrose, have spent endless hours over this simple ratio and its properties. But the fascination with the Golden Ratio is not confined just to mathematicians. Biologists, artists, musicians, historians, architects, psychologists, and even mystics have pondered and debated the basis of its ubiquity and appeal. In fact, it is probably fair to say that the Golden Ratio has inspired thinkers of all disciplines like no other number in the history of mathematics. ~ Mario Livio

Good music excellently played beautifies the world, calling people out of the prison of themselves to something greater and grander. Literature, both writing and reading it, is strategic. How many people have been primed to receive the gospel because they read The Chronicles of Narnia as children? And how much medieval philosophy and classical poetry and fantastic fiction did C. S. Lewis have to read before he was equipped to write those precious books? ~ Joe Rigney

Even at the very dawn of Christianity, there was a commonly-accepted theory known as the Blood Libel, which stated matter-of-factly that Jewish people regularly sacrificed non-Jewish babies and used the blood of those babies in Judaic rituals. Later, in medieval times, plagues and other diseases were commonly blamed on Jews, resulting in the enforcement of Apartheid-like conditions, separating Jewish communities from the rest of the population throughout Europe. For example, in the Papal States – territories in the Italian Peninsula that existed throughout the middle ages and medieval times that were governed directly by the Pope – Jews were only allowed to reside in neighborhoods called ghettos. They were regularly forced to convert to Christianity in various barbaric ways such as involuntary baptisms. The stealing of Jewish babies from their parents by Church officials was also not uncommon and the children would often then be brought up as Catholic orphans never knowing of their Jewish heritage. ~ James Morcan

The way you philosophize life, With those beer tins in your hand, Lady, such a poetry you are when you are drunk, And those cigarettes in between your pretty fingers, You look so very graceful when you are smoking, So very beautiful in the haze, Like some medieval artwork, So worthy to be on canvas…

I just love to watch you struggle in bed, Fighting the sunlight with your pillow, And in all the glory of your Sunday morning hangover, Innocence oozes out of your drunken face, And Oh my Godless lady it's time for your, Lemonades, Novocain and hour long shower in silence. I know it's crazy to believe in silly things, But you look so very pure when you suffer from your addictions…

--- Her Cigarettes And Beers ~ Piyush Rohankar

The faint hints of color in her complexion, her tawny blond hair, her extraordinary thinness, all spoke of that unearthly grace modern poets find in the medieval statues. Had she been happy, she'd have been ravishing: happiness constitutes pure poetry, for women. ~ Honore De Balzac

Let not the weight of a thousand years, Stain your marbled skin I pray, And let not the weight of words ever hurt, Your delicate wine bled lips. Wear that hallowed smile as your eternal crown, And let it graze and let it flourish, Let it heal my desolate heart morose, Come and baptize all of what is left of me, Before I wear the silence in black and white… ~ Piyush Rohankar

I was born to make mistakes, not to be perfect. ~ Ross Lynch

Romance for me is
Meeting yeu after a Long time
After all those nighs i have spend longing
to hold yeu
thinking about yeu
And finally being next to yeu
when i still have to hold back
Because there are people around
Romance for me is trying to act normal
And not being able to take my eyes off yeu ~ Sandesh Hukpachongbang

O benefit of ill! Now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuk'd to my content,
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. ~ William Shakespeare

I have named you queen.
There are taller than you, taller.
There are purer than you, purer.
There are lovelier than you, lovelier.
But you are the queen.
When you go through the streets
No one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks
At the carpet of red gold
That you tread as you pass,
The nonexistent carpet.
And when you appear
All the rivers sound
In my body, bells
Shake the sky,
And a hymn fills the world.
Only you and I,
Only you and I, my love,
Listen to it. ~ Pablo Neruda

I'm married to an Italian woman, and I used to love cooking Italian at home, because it's one-pot cooking. But my wife does not approve of my Italian cooking. ~ Anthony Bourdain

It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum. ~ Terry Pratchett

[…] your smile has been to war ~ Audre Lorde

Poetry should only occupy the idle. ~ Lord Byron

my strength should not threaten you.
my strength is not a threat to your strength.
you are strong.
you are beautiful.
you are lush.
you are powerful.
as you are.
as i am.

imagine the force we would be together
if we lifted each other up.
imagine the force we would be together
if we didn't tear each other down. ~ AVA.

When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn't matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry. ~ Audre Lorde

I have an attitude now that is immovable. I shall remain outside of the world, beyond the temporal, beyond all the organizations of the world. I only believe in poetry. ~ Anais Nin

What, after all, is mathematics but the poetry of the mind, and what is poetry but the mathematics of the heart? ~ David Eugene Smith

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. ~ George Miller

It was like walking through a scene from an Italian movie. The street was lined with clothing stores and little coffee shops and restaurants, and people kept calling to one another from windows and cars. Halfway down the street a horn beeped politely and everyone cleared out of the street to make way for an entire family crowded onto a scooter. There was even a string of laundry hanging between two buildings, a billowy red housedress flapping right in the middle of it. Any second now a director was going to jump out and yell, Cut! ~ Jenna Evans Welch

But not to know error is to lie, is to spit up poison through the harrowing margins of weakened mineral campaigns. It is the deeply filtered and the wretched who deny this, who test themselves with exoteric perfection, who turn their branded melodias to simple outward gain. In contrast to the rotation of immensity, to the treble glare of inward cyclical rarity, such outward wit carries less than the power of negation. ~ Will Alexander

There is safety in numbness–
there is solace
in sleep. ~ Lang Leav

Because it is occasionally possible, just for brief moments, to find the words that will unlock the doors of all those many mansions inside the head and express something - perhaps not much, just something - of the crush of information that presses in on us from the way a crow flies over and the way a man walks and the look of a street and from what we did one day a dozen years ago. Words that will express something of the deep complexity that makes us precisely the way we are, from the momentary effect of the barometer to the force that created men distinct from trees. Something of the inaudible music that moves us along in our bodies from moment to moment like water in a river. Something of the spirit of the snowflake in the water of the river. Something of the duplicity and the relativity and the merely fleeting quality of all this. Something of the almighty importance of it and something of the utter meaninglessness. And when words can manage something of this, and manage it in a moment, of time, and in that same moment, make out of it all the vital signature of a human being - not of an atom, or of a geometrical diagram, or of a heap of lenses - but a human being, we call it poetry. ~ Ted Hughes

The media has outright lied on me. They reported that I called myself Osama's [Bin Laden] 'sex slave,' apparently unaware that sex slaves aren't allowed to look their master in the eye, write poetry with him or go on hunting excursions with him. ~ Kola Boof

Whatever poetry that was in me was coming out in the form of constructing art books! ~ Stephen Vincent Benet

... when your palm laced like water
on a cheek of mine, a finger raiding
each contour by oath, we both knew
that in growing up, some signs had to be
sought behind closed doors, and upon discovery,
remain beyond the doors we wrought as ransom. ~ Jerrold Yam

YEN
What happens if you take a cup? Put it to your lips. A cup of desire. Of dazzling colour. Of intoxicating aroma. You can't resist. Drink. And in the bottom of the cup. There is a fish. And the fish says "You have uncovered me! Now I am condemned. To die."
What happens if you find a box? 35mm by 35mm exactly. And are curious. You open it quickly. Of course. And inside there is an eye. And the eye seems to think that the box is its exclusive property. And fixes you with a terrifying glare.
What happens if you catch a soft sound? A voice whispering in the air. Above the tree tops. And you can't quite hear what it is saying. But you have to listen. So you float up. Then you find you can't come down again. When the conversation is finished. ~ Jay Woodman

You are the ache in my heart! ~ Avijeet Das

...Both a baby and a poem masquerade as something we've created, when we know that they arrive from somewhere beyond us, that they are gifts. ~ Beth Ann Fennelly

You will find
that most of life's
toughest
and more existential
questions
can be solved
or indefinitely postponed
by spending more time
around the people you love. ~ Atticus Poetry

Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary. ~ Oscar Wilde

But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? How has it happened that all the fine arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, statuary, music, poetry, and oratory, have been prostituted, from the creation of the world, to the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud?
[Letter to judge F.A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816.] ~ John Adams

Never doubt magic
as long as there are shooting stars,
fireflies,
and love
in a little girl's heart. ~ Atticus Poetry

I must say a few words about memory. It is full of holes. If you were to lay it out upon a table, it would resemble a scrap of lace. I am a lover of history . . . [but] history has one flaw. It is a subjective art, no less so than poetry or music. . . . The historian writes a truth. The memoirist writes a truth. The novelist writes a truth. And so on. My mother, we both know, wrote a truth in The 19th Wife– a truth that corresponded to her memory and desires. It is not the truth, certainly not. But a truth, yes . . . Her book is a fact. It remains so, even if it is snowflaked with holes. ~ David Ebershoff

Having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for. ~ Charles Bukowski

In the poetry of arrival, the garage door is free verse; the front door can be anything from a rhyming couplet to a sonnet. ~ Akiko Busch

In The End The Words Are The All And The Nothing. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

They will not struggle energetically against him, sometimes they will even applaud him; but they do not follow him. To his vehemence they secretly oppose their inertia, to his revolutionary tendencies their conservative interests, their homely tastes to his adventurous passions, their good sense to the flights of his genius, to his poetry their prose. With immense exertion he raises them for an instant, but they speedily escape from him and fall back, as it were, by their own weight. He strains himself to rouse the indifferent and distracted multitude and finds at last that he is reduced to impotence, not because he is conquered, but because he is alone. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville