Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Napoleon Bonaparte on History

Posted on July 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Red-Figure Vase Painting

Posted on July 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Red-Figure Vase Painting: Technique and style of Greek vase painting developed bout 525 BC (after Black-Figure Vase Painting) and dominating the art of the 5th century B.C. Black glaze is painted around the forms and figures of the reddish-brown clay, with inner details painted in. The finest Greek wares are in the red-figure style.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Term of Art: Auxiliary Verb

Posted on July 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Auxiliary Verb: A verb that combines with the main verb to show differences in tense, person and voice. The most common auxiliaries are forms of be, do, and have. I am going; we did not go; they have gone.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Geology

Posted on July 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Geology, n. The science of the earth’s crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones of mired mules, gaspipes, miners’ tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railroad tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Book of Answers: The Vulgate Bible

Posted on July 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“When did the Vulgate Bible first appear? The Latin translation of the Bible was written mostly by Saint Jerome in 382-384 A.D. The term comes from Latin edition vulgate, ‘spread among the people.’”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Iconography

Posted on July 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Iconography: The area of study dealing with the description of visual images and symbols. Art historian Erwin Panofsky first made the distinction between the identification of images (iconography) and the interpretation of their meaning (iconology). See ALLEGORY and REPRESENTATION.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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Diaspora

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Diaspora: Exile or dispersion used with reference to the exile of the Jewish people from the land of Israel, though also now by analogy to other groups. Diaspora may also be used to refer not only to the state of being in exile, but also to the place of exile, the communities in exile, and to a state of mind that results from living in exile. The Hebrew term galut (also golus, galuth) expresses the feeling of living as a member of a relatively defenseless minority, subject to injustice if not to outright persecution in an unredeemed—though not unredeemable—world.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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The 7 Hausa Cities

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Daura * Zaria * Biram * Kano * Katsina * Rano * Gobir

These are the seven cities of the Hausa people of Central West Africa whose historic territory extends across Nigeria, Niger, and several other modern nations.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Historical Term: Buffer State

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“buffer state: Small state created or maintained between two larger ones, either to prevent their taking control of strategically important territory or to eliminate the possibility of an armed clash between them by removing their common border.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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A Spurious Quote from Socrates on Youth

Posted on July 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“The children now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.”

“Attributed in N.Y. Times, 24 Jan. 1948. This spurious quote, trying to make the point that adults have always complained about the behavior of youths, became very popular in the 1960s, Researchers have never found anything like it in the words of Socrates or Plato. Dennis Lien has discovered a similar attribution in Guy Endore’s 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris: ‘The young people no longer obey the old. The laws that ruled their fathers are trampled underfoot. They seek only their own pleasure and have no respect for religion. They dress indecently and their talk is full of impudence.’ Endore cites ‘an ancient Egyptian papyrus’ as the source.”

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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