#his

Before anyone could be delivered, everybody betrayed everybody. The Jews no longer knew which current to swim, and brother turned against brother. It seems that Josephus was quick in putting all the blame on the Zealots, himself having deserted the mission. He was a turncoat, and nothing he said can be taken at face value without carefully reading between the lines. Josephus did not recognize that the same guys he cursed in failure would have been his heroes in success. But then, the failure might have come about through those who abandoned the mission—those like himself. It is the age-old question: has the freedom fighter turned terrorist, or has the terrorist turned freedom fighter? ↗

— A.J. Deus

#age

Kevin looks at me and I know he isn’t seeing the little girl I use to be, all pigtails and gangly limbs. He isn’t seeing my mother’s daughter or even my mother anymore. As his eyes linger over me, stopping here and there in the most uncomfortable places, I know he isn’t really even seeing me as I am. The bloodshot eyes staring out of the alcohol-flushed face are seeing a girl, nearly of age, who owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude.--Rocky Evans ↗

— Gwenn Wright

#historical-fiction #love #romance #romantic-suspense #teens

Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century, who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing... and the Gospel according to St. Thomas... was a new thrust like the titanic thrust of Gothic engineering; and its strength was in a God that makes all things new. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#civilization #culture #europe #history #renaissance

Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself. ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#destiny #happiness #humanism #inspirational #karma

南イタリアには、一度この地を知ると、虜になってしまう不思議な魅力がある。それもそのはずで、地中海に突き出た南イタリアは、古くから多くの民族が行き交い、さまざまな文化が交錯する地域であり、都市を探訪するにはもってこいの宝庫なのだ。世界広しといえども、都市の在り方がこれほど多彩で、感動的な風景と出会える場所も珍しい。 南イタリアの都市風景の多様性を生むうえで、ここに繰り広げられた歴史のドラマがそのベースになっているのはいうまでもない。古代のギリシア、ローマをはじめ、中世のビザンツ、イスラーム、そしてノルマン、さらにはフランスやスペインの支配下で、多様な文化が培われた。 そして、南イタリア都市の変化に富んだ迫力ある形態は、その古さと明らかに結びついている。中北部のイタリアよりも、中世の早い時期に都市を形成し、あるいは古代都市を復興したから、骨格となる層が古く、それだけ複雑な都市構造が生まれたのだ。しかも、南には、重厚な石づくりの文化を発展させた地方が多く、建物の持続性がそれだけ大きい。「イタリアの都市は歴史が重なっている」とよく言われるが、南イタリアを巡ると、それをいっそう強く感じる。ここでは、古い時代の建物の壁がよく残り、歴史の重なりがそのまま視覚化されているのである。 同時にまた、いかにも地中海世界らしい自然条件、気候風土が、独特の民家や都市・集落の姿をつくり出した。変化に富んだ地形とあいまって、都市や集落はさまざまな立地の在り方を見せている。 心地よい戸外での生活が活発なのも、南イタリアの大きな特徴で、それだけ近隣所のコミュニティの共有空間も発達した。人々の生活ドラマが繰り広げられる舞台としての都市空間は、我々の心を打つ。 南イタリアには、このように個性的で魅力ある都市が各地にあるのに、ほとんど調査もされず、眠っていることが多い。イタリアには歴史的価値のある建築や都市が多過ぎて、南部の小さな田舎町にまで、とても専門家の目が届かないのだ。[4〜5ページ] ↗

— 陣内 秀信

#history #italy #architecture

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends. ↗

— Baltasar Gracian

#friends #gets #his #man #more

The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution! ↗

— Albert Einstein

#democracy #freedom #history #hope #individualism

To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is. ↗

— David McCullough

#civic-responsibility #history #humanity #life #mankind

They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference; they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage; had ye not better make one of us, than sneak after the arses of those villains for employment? ↗

— Samuel Bellamy

#anarchy #class #employment #piracy #pirates

Provided we can escape from the museums we carry around inside us, provided we can stop selling ourselves tickets to the galleries in our own skulls, we can begin to contemplate an art which re-creates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols ... Art tells gorgeous lies that come true. ↗

— Hakim Bey

#art #radical-theory #social-change #art