Quotes Flashcards
“His soul fled from his breast to its destined place among the steadfast ones”
Beowulf
“They said that of all the kings upon earth He was the man most gracious and fair-minded, Kindest to his people and keenest to win fame”
Beowulf
“Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark”
Beowulf to Hrothgar after his favorite retainer dies
“He who advises that we should reject this pact, does not care, lord, what sort of death we die. Arrogant advice should not prosper; Let us avoid fools and heed the wise.”
Ganelon
“He begins to tear at his white beard. With both hands he pulls the hair from his head. A hundred thousand Franks fall to the ground in a faint.”
Describes Charlemagne when he finds Roland’s body
Friends and kinsmen flocked to his ranks, young followers, a force that grew to be a mighty army. So his mind turned to hall-building
Hrothgar
“God forbid that my kinsmen should incur reproach because of me or that the fair land of France shall fall into disrepute. No, I shall strike many a blow with Durendal.”
Roland
“You will not go in my place; you are not my vassal and I am not your lord. Charles orders me to carry out his mission.”
Ganelon
He beseeches God to grant him paradise, and he blessed Charles and their fair land of France, and his companion Roland above all men.
Oliver
Many of the women in the family, I tell you truly, were born without noses and lived noseless.
Marie de France
Lai of Bisclavret
To conceal his wickedness he jumped feet first into the tub, completely naked. He paid no heed to the danger involved and was scalded to death.
Marie de France
Lai of Equitan
Women frequently made advances to him, but he was indifferent to them. He showed no visible interest in love and was thus considered a lost cause by stranger and friend alike.
Marie de France
Lai of Guigemar
He placed his dear wife together with his first one and the latter received her as her sister and showed her great honor.
Marie de France
Lai of Eludic
“How I came to it, I cannot rightly say, so drugged and loose with sleep had I become when I first wandered there from the True Way
Dante
“Shipmates, who through a hundred thousand perils have reached the West, do not deny to the brief remaining watch our senses stand experience of the world beyond the sun.”
Ulysses
“I was born, though late, sub Julio, and bred in Rome under Augustus in the noon of the false and lying gods.”
Virgil
Greeks! You were not born to live like brutes
but to press onward toward manhood and recognition!
Dante’s Inferno
Ulysses
“Since I was twelve years old, thanks be to eternal God, I have had five husbands at the church door.”
Wife of Bath
This young wife was
lovely; her body as
graceful and slim as a
weasel’s.
Alisonn
I would rather be stabbed
because of the true love I have for you
than have you fail to keep your word of honor.
Honor is the highest thing that man can hold.
The Franklin’s Tale
Arveragus
I will grant you life if you can tell me
What thing it is that women most desire
The Wife of Bath’s Tale
Queen
I was gap-toothed, and that became me well.
The Wife of Bath
“If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I die as chaste as Diana unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will.”
Portia
“In sooth, I know not
why I am so sad. It
wearies me, you say it
wearied you.
Antonio
“I am married to a wife, which is as dear to me as life itself. But life itself, my wife, and all the world are not with me esteemed above thy life.”
Bassanio
“The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
Shylock
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Shylock
It is a good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
Portia
“When one considers the men proposed to me as models for my imitation, it is no wonder that in this way I was swept along by vanities and travelled right away from you, my God.”
Augustine
He had already embraced the humility that befits your mysteries, and tamed his body to tough discipline by asceticism of extraordinary boldness: he went barefoot on the icy soil of Italy.
Alypius
For to love this world is to break troth with you, yet men applaud and are ashamed otherwise. I did not weep over this, but instead I wept for Dido, who surrendered her life to the sword, while I forsook you and surrendered myself to the lowest of your created things.
Augustine
On the contrary, It is said in the person of God: I am Who am.
Aquinas
We can say that cruelty is used well (if it is permissible to talk in this way of what is evil) when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects.
The Prince (Machiavelli)
One cannot call it virtue to kill one’s fellow citizens, to betray one’s friends, to be without faith, without compassion, without religion. These modes may be used to acquire rule but not glory.
The Prince (Machiavelli)
A prudent man should always enter by paths beaten by great men and imitate those who have been the most excellent, so that if his virtue does not arrive there, at least it gives off some scent of it.
The Prince (Machiavelli)
“That prince who creates this opinion of himself has a very great reputation; and against anyone who has a reputation it is difficult to conspire.”
The Prince (Machiavelli)
“One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God.”
Luther
“I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.
Montaigne
They are intended to teach man to know himself, that through them he may recognize his inability to do good and may despair of his own ability.
Luther
