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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 47697f5 | Impoverished Spain depended on imports not only for manufactured products but even for sufficient food. Spanish agriculture was hampered by poor soil and by the strange institution known as the Mesta. Spanish sheep grew high-quality fleeces--not as good as those of English sheep but better than could be found elsewhere--and Spain had, in fact, replaced England as the source of wool for the Flemish and Italian cloth industries. The Mesta was.. | Rodney Stark | ||
| 2a06e71 | In any event, there was no "fall" into "Dark Ages." Instead, once freed of the bondage of Rome, Europe separated into hundreds of independent "statelets."16 In many of these societies progress and increased production became profitable, and that ushered in "one of the great innovative eras of mankind," as technology was developed and put into use "on a scale no civilization had previously known." | Rodney Stark | ||
| 5073472 | For example, at the fall of Rome there was very extensive slavery everywhere in Europe; by the time of the "Renaissance" it was long gone." | Rodney Stark | ||
| af63b5f | How many victims were consumed by these ceremonies? In 1487, well before any contact with Europeans, the Aztecs inaugurated their great new Templo Mayor. The day began with four lines of victims, each line stretching for two miles. The historian and anthropologist Inga Clendinnen has estimated the total number sacrificed on that occasion as twenty thousand, although others have placed the number as high as eighty thousand.12 This was, of co.. | Rodney Stark | ||
| 08b923e | As the world learned of the horrors of the Nazi death camps, Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war. In 1943, Chaim Weizmann, who would become the first president of Israel, wrote: "the Holy See is lending its powerful help wherever it can, to mitigate the fate of my persecuted co-religionists."77 Moshe Sharett, soon to be Israel's first foreign minister and second prime m.. | Rodney Stark | ||
| e602381 | An additional indication of economic growth in ancient Greece comes from the major increases in the average size of Greek houses: in the eighth century BC it was 53 square meters; by the sixth century BC it had grown to 122 square meters; and by the fifth century BC it was 325 square meters.54 | Rodney Stark | ||
| 98f15a9 | More recently, faculty at the University of Texas condemned "Western Civilization" courses as inherently right wing, and Yale even returned a $20 million contribution rather than reinstate the course." | Rodney Stark | ||
| 610d91f | Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the rise of science is not that the early scientists searched for natural laws, confident that they existed, but that they found them. It thus could be said that the proposition that the universe had an Intelligent Designer is the most fundamental of all scientific theories and that it has been successfully put to empirical tests again and again. | Rodney Stark | ||
| f42bc93 | Rather than a great tragedy, the fall of Rome was the single most beneficial event in the rise of Western civilization. | Rodney Stark | ||
| ceb1453 | Keep in mind that democracy merely gives power to the people; it does not ensure that power will be used wisely or humanely. | Rodney Stark | ||
| c61998f | The Industrial Revolution was the culmination of the rise of Western civilization that began in Greece twenty-seven centuries ago. It was the product of human freedom and the pursuit of knowledge, which is precisely why it happened where and when it did. | Rodney Stark | ||
| 9e8ae6c | It is well known that the Chinese had gunpowder by the thirteenth century and even cast a few cannons. But when Western voyagers reached China in the sixteenth century the Chinese lacked both artillery and firearms, whereas the Europeans had an abundance of both. | Rodney Stark | ||
| 1acd704 | It needs to be emphasized that the Church vigorously advocated and defended democracy in northern Italy. Not only did the Church unequivocally assert moral equality, but it also ventured into the political arena, with bishops and cardinals playing a leading role on behalf of expanding the franchise. | Rodney Stark | ||
| 3b103b0 | So much, then, for the "mystery" of how Muslim culture was somehow lost or left behind. The notion that in the medieval era Islamic culture was advanced well beyond Europe is as much an illusion as recent ones about an "Arab Spring." The Islamic world was backward then, and so it remains." | Rodney Stark | ||
| b83d893 | Although many sociologists still echo Max Weber's (1864-1920) claim that capitalism originated in the Protestant Reformation, capitalism actually originated in the "depths" of the "Dark Ages." | Rodney Stark | ||
| fb39546 | As Rodney Stark puts it, "Almost generation after generation, Christian writers recorded acts of persecution and harassment, to the point of slaughter and destruction, suffered at the hands of Muslim [Arab, Persian, and Turkish] rulers."9 That said, the persecution and carnage had reached apocalyptic levels by the 1090s. THE CALL FROM CLERMONT It was in this context that, on November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) made his famous ap.. | Raymond Ibrahim | ||
| 4d504f0 | Another thing: if you should decide you must kill me before you talk to [...], do not do it while we are still inside the inn. You will need help to get out. | Mel Odom | ||
| e609268 | The Inspector stood up. Worried. Fonso Spalato fell silent. | Andrea Camilleri (Author) Stephen Sartarelli (Translator) | ||
| 8ad2d5a | Mi madre lo decia: hay un reloj de esperar y otro de despedirse; el de esperar siempre atrasa. | Alejandro Casona | ||
| 90c8aee | Uzh tak povelos' v mire. Esli chelovek ne glup, - on obiazatel'no nemnozhko sumasshedshii. | alejandro casona | ||
| 2d999f6 | U tebia slishkom mnogo serdtsa. Ty nikogda ne budesh' nastoiashchei aktrisoi. | Alejandro Casona | ||
| 5457b51 | Posmotri na tot palisandr, tam v sadu. On teper' znachit chto-to, potomu chto ot nego ten' i on tsvetet. A zavtra on umret, kak umiraiut derev'ia: stoia i molcha, i nikto ne vspomnit o nem. Vot esli by ego napisal velikii khudozhnik, on zhil by vechno | Alejandro Casona | ||
| 3acdc5f | Cuando la senora manda una cosa y el senor otra, se dice que si al senor y se hace lo que manda la senora. | Alejandro Casona | ||
| 46f2d17 | Evangeline mashed the potatoes with excessive force. She could work out her frustration over Logan's obstinance and produce silky smooth potatoes at the same time. Benefits all around. | frustration humor | Karen Witemeyer | |
| ee66efe | Where is the love in what you're doing? | motive-behind-any-action | Karen Witemeyer | |
| 700c8b2 | He was no good at making pretty words. The more he opened his mouth, the greater his chances of mucking things up. | Karen Witemeyer | ||
| 38880a1 | I have decided that when I'm dead I'd like my body in the woods under a light coating of leaves. That being against the law, maybe I will go for cremation. I ask Chuck what he wants done with his remains. "Remains?" says Chuck. "Do there have to be remains? Can't I just vanish? Be no more?" I tell him I'm sorry but yes, he has to have remains. "Either I'm too young to be thinking about this," he says, "or I have to figure out a way of offin.. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| d87e77b | I used to lie in a lover's arms getting a stiff neck, or needing to scratch my nose, or losing all sensation in my arm, unwilling to move lest the man find out I wasn't comfortable in his embrace...Would Snow White have rested all eight pounds of her head on any part of the prince? I doubt it, and I never did either. Sarah says that is why elderly women have such prominent cords in their necks. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| b20f500 | It's easy to find that five or six hours have sped by without my noticing. I am having fun. This is not my world, these are not my fears. is great storytelling, and it is not my story. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 0817af4 | There are three things that make me want to drink: difficult times, when I want alcohol to either alleviate the pain or allow me to feel it; clear days that make me want to scribble all over the irritating blue sky; and well, waking up in the morning. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 163e439 | Happy," for instance, once meant "luck." Not good luck or bad, just luck. Look what we have done to ourselves. We think we can actually pursue happiness." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 3ea0ddd | drip and fling and pour color onto the glass. Then I push the paint around. You have to have some faith. If it looks like nothing, if you think you've destroyed what might have been a good painting, keep at it. If you've scraped all but a few streaks away, chances are those streaks will suggest something else. Don't give up. Don't be afraid of the mess. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 32e27a6 | Good things happen slowly and bad things happen fast. Those were comforting words, and they comfort me today. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 7344f1b | What can come?" my grandson Sam asked, when he was very young, after his mother had warned him not to go into the woods after dark. What can come? This was a brilliant question. Can is scarier than will. What will come limits itself. What can come has no boundaries." -- | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 82fe8d3 | even when there's no interest on either side one's coordination completely disappears in the presence of beauty (Abigail's daughter, Jen) | Abigail Thomas | ||
| d5bbf93 | But we don't get to choose what sticks. How many times I have run my fingers along a picket fence and thought, "This! I will remember this moment always!" and all that remains is the memory of a desire to hold on to a memory." | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 9c3ae0f | So instead of not-writing, I am painting. I'm not a painter, but I make paintings anyway. I use glass and oil-based house paint, which is toxic, and which you can't buy just anywhere anymore. It's being phased out in favor of latex, which doesn't stick to glass, and acrylic, which I haven't tried. Stacked on my garage windowsill are seventeen quarts of the stuff in various primary colors, in case the whole world stops selling it. I love the.. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| eb3f33a | If you were to look into our apartment in the late morning, or early afternoon, or toward suppertime, you might find us together sleeping. Of course a good rainy day is preferable, but even on sunny summer days, the dogs and I get into bed. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 00c993b | Here's what I love about painting. It's not about words or voice or tone or point of view or narrative arc (perish the thought); it's about the way certain branches stick straight out from the trunks of certain trees; it's about the clouds that you can barely see as well as the ones that pile on top of each other; it's about the swoop of telephone wires and the shapes and colors of shadows. A real painter recently told me that all artists w.. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| b91ce66 | I feel only gratitude. We are doing something as necessary to our well-being as food or air or water. We are steeping ourselves, reassuring ourselves, renewing ourselves, three creatures of two species, finding comfort in the simple exchange of body warmth. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 33651cf | Maybe there are clusters of souls born again and again into the same repertory company, and with each new birth they play different parts in a different play. Or maybe it's the same play. This would account for those moments of Oh! there you are! After all, there are those people we like and dislike, there are those people we love, and then there are those we recognize. These are the unbreakable connections. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| 6a2a8c6 | Forget career, forget the future, forget existential worries, just get yourselves a couple of dogs, and everything will be all right. | forget simple | Abigail Thomas | |
| 889929e | other people's condiments are depressing. | Abigail Thomas | ||
| c5c486d | After all, there are those people we like and dislike, there are those people we love, and then there are those we recognize. These are the unbreakable connections. | connection-with-others connection-with-people connections people | Abigail Thomas |