Rome Quotes - Page 19

• The walls that fence our fields, as well as modern Rome, and not less the Parthenon itself, are all built of ruins.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wall, Fields, Ruins

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.179, Xist Publishing

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• Pliny the Elder, who when Rome was burning requested Nero to play You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille. Never got a dinner!

  Red Buttons

  Play, Burning, Nero

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• The Jews believed Jerusalem to be the centre. I have seen a kratometric chart designed to show that the city of Philadelphia was in the same thermic belt, and, by inference, in the same belt of empire, as the cities of Athens, Rome, and London. It was drawn by a patriotic Philadelphian, and was examined with pleasure, under his showing, by the inhabitants of Chestnut Street. But, when carried to Charleston, to New Orleans, and to Boston, it somehow failed to convince the ingenious scholars of all those capitals.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Patriotic, Boston, Cities

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.599, Modern Library

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• But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome - people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Believe, Creativity, People

  "Do All Of Us Possess Genius?". Interview with Alison Stewart, www.npr.org. May 25, 2012.

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• I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

  Julius Caesar

  Inspirational, Life, Firsts

  Francis Bacon 'The Advancement of Learning' pt. 2, ch. 23, sect. 36, based on Plutarch 'Parallel Lives' 'Julius Caesar' ch. 11

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• A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Art, Memories, Men

  Benjamin Disraeli (1844). “Coningsby, etc”, p.113

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• Getting ahead in a difficult profession - singing, acting, writing, whatever requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I felt I could achieve.

  Sophia Loren

  Encouragement, Couple, Writing

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• I would rather be first in a little Iberian village than second in Rome.

  Epicurus

  Attitude, Village, Littles

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• Our society, like decadent Rome, has turned into an amusement society, with writers chief among the court jesters

  Saul Bellow

  Amusement, Our Society, Court

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• London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Fate, Paris

  Samuel Johnson, Thomas Park (1811). “The poetical works of Samuel Johnson: collated with the best editions”, p.12

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• Now the good gods forbid That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude Towards her deserved children is enrolled In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam Should now eat up her own!

  William Shakespeare

  Gratitude, Children, Book

  William Shakespeare, Lee Bliss (2000). “Coriolanus”, p.195, Cambridge University Press

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• The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby, Knowing that with the shadow of his wings He can at pleasure stint their melody: Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.

  William Shakespeare

  Mean, Men, Eagles

  1592 Tamora to Saturninus.Titus Andronicus, act 4, sc.4, l.83-6.

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• London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  London, Epitome, Our Time

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.364, Penguin

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• A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Lying, Men, Egypt

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1849). “Twelve Essays”, p.10

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• The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.

  Edward Gibbon

  People, History, Religion

  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ch. 2 (1776 - 1788)

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• It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Distance, Government, Littles

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• I've gradually fooled myself into becoming a real painter... I really just like to sit in my air-conditioned Rome painting studio surrounded by Medieval and Renaissance architecture and to hold a tube of Alizarin Madder Lake in my artist's hand and marvel at the shiny goop inside.

  Mark Kostabi

  Real, Artist, Lakes

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• Rome was so mighty that it could not fall. It had to vanish in a cloud, like so many of the mythical heros of antiquity, and to receive its apotheosis among the stars before men became fully aware that it had vanished from the earth!

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Stars, Fall, Hero

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• I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble.

  Suetonius

  Bricks, Found, Marble

  Suetonius (1980). “The twelve Caesars”, Penguin Group USA

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• Ancient art was the tyrant of Egypt, the mistress of Greece and the servant of Rome.

  Henry Fuseli

  Art, Egypt, Tyrants

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• The first (barbers) that entered Italy came out of Sicily and it was in the 454 yeare after the foundation of Rome. Brought in they were by P. Ticinius Mena as Verra doth report for before that time they never cut their hair. The first that was shaven every day was Scipio Africanus, and after cometh Augustus the Emperor who evermore used the razor.

  Pliny the Elder

  Cutting, Hair, Foundation

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 57, Natural History, Book VII, Chapter LIX. Holland's translation, 1922.

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• Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice
  Is that thou utterest while all else is still--
  The ancient voice that, centuries ago,
  Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet
  A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream!

  William C. Bryant

  Voice, Rivers, Solitude

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• In Rome people spend most of their time having lunch. And they do it very well - Rome is unquestionably the lunch capital of the world.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Lunch, People, World

  Fran Lebowitz (2011). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, p.82, Vintage

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• The younger generation forms a country of its own. It has no geographical boundaries. I've talked with young Hungarians in Budapest, with young Italians in Rome, with young Frenchmen in Paris, and with young people all over. ... These young people are going to do things. They are going to change things.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Country, Paris, People

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• When the Gauls laid waste Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes, and seated in stern tranquillity in their curule chairs; in this manner they suffered death without resistance or supplication. Such conduct was in them applauded as noble and magnanimous; in the hapless Indians it was reviled as both obstinate and sullen. How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstances! How different is virtue, clothed in purple and enthroned in state, from virtue, naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a wilderness.

  Washington Irving

  Purple, Waste, Resistance

  Washington Irving (1983). “History, Tales, and Sketches”, p.1011, Library of America

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