Constantinople Quotes

• If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Istanbul, Would Be, Earth

  "Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World" edited by Thomas F. Madden, Penguin Random House, November 7, 2014.

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• Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Christian, New York, Believe

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.106, 谷月社

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• I shall not return to Constantinople until I have conquered Egypt!

  Djemal Pasha

  Egypt, Return

  "On Secret Service East of Constantinople". Book by Peter Hopkirk, p. 77, 2001.

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• A street in Constantinople is a picture which one ought to see once-not oftener.

  Mark Twain

  Streets, Ought

  Mark Twain (2008). “The Innocents Abroad”, p.359, Velvet Element Books

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• Always have the fear of God in your heart, and remember that God is always with you, everywhere, whether you are walking or sitting.

  Gennadius of Constantinople

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

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• Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates who reigned in the capital of the East was rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria.

  Edward Gibbon

  School, Rome, Years

  Edward Gibbon (1840). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.299

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• Seldom can two such epoch-making events have occurred in successive years as happened then. In 1453 the Turks stormed Constantinople and finally destroyed the Greek Empire, driving out Greek scholars, who carried the knowledge of Greek language and literature to the western world; and in 1454 the first document known to us appeared from the printing press at Mainz.

  Frederic G. Kenyon

  Two, Years, Greek

  "The Story Of The Bible" by Frederic G. Kenyon. Ch. IV, From manuscript To Print, p. 41-42, 1949.

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• In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of Rome.

  Will Durant

  Christian, Religious, Rome

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• Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.

  Honore de Balzac

  Ideas, Paris, Pet

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.117, The Floating Press

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• In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.

  Frank Herbert

  Church, Holiness, Pope

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• Since the building of Constantinople, and the removal of the seat of government to that city, no political quarrel separated Rome from Egypt. Pagan Rome, ever since the union of the two countries under Augustus, except when interrupted by the rebellions, had been eagerly copying the superstitions of Egypt, and Christian Rome still followed the same course.

  Samuel Sharpe

  Christian, Country, Cities

  Samuel Sharpe (1896). “Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity: With Their Influence on the Opinions of Modern Christendom”

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• The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years in a state of premature and perpetual decay.

  Edward Gibbon

  Son, Eight, Years

  Edward Gibbon (2000). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.304, Modern Library

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• In all times and in all places--in Constantinople, northwestern Zambia, Victorian England, Sparta, Arabia, . . . medieval France,Babylonia, . . . Carthage, Mahenjo-Daro, Patagonia, Kyushu, . . . Dresden--the time span between childhood and adulthood, however fleeting or prolonged, has been associated with the acquisition of virtue as it is differently defined in each society. A child may be good and morally obedient, but only in the process of arriving at womanhood or manhood does a human being become capable of virtue--that is, the qualities of mind and body that realize society's ideals.

  Louise J. Kaplan

  Children, Zambia, Childhood

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• To be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the masterworks and chief men of each race. It is to have the sea, by voyaging; to visit the mountains, Niagara, the Nile, the desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: to see galleries, libraries, arsenals, manufactories.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Race, Rome

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.366

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• I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Rome, Paris, Doe

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• Environment is a sculptor - a painter. If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana. As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Mother, Children, Believe

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• The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit of St. Sophia against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding or even marking the character of any individual.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Character, Past

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.502

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• The Government should take a firm, bold line. This delay - this uncertainty, by which, abroad, we are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and will be before Constantinople in no time! Then the Government will be fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would abdicate at once.

  Queen Victoria

  Queens, Thinking, Russia

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• Instead of pressing, with the foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople, Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference; required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment of a friend.

  Edward Gibbon

  Attachment, History, Important

  Edward Gibbon, William George Smith (1857). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.175

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