“There is a history in all men’s lives, figuring the nature of the times deceas’d; the which observ’d, a man may prophesy, with a near aim, of the main chance of things as yet not come to life, which in their seeds and weak beginnings lie intreasured. Such things become the hatch and brood of time.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part 3.1
“That one might read the book of fate, and see the revolution of the times make mountains level, and the continent,—weary of solid firmness,—melt itself into the sea! and, other times, to see the beachy girdle of the ocean too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock, and changes fill the cup of alteration with divers liquors! Oh, if this were seen, the happiest youth,—viewing his progress through, what perils past, what crosses to ensue,—would shut the book, and sit him down and die.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part 3.1
“O thoughts of men accurst! Past, and to come, seems best; things present, worst.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part 1.3
“In an early spring we see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, hope gives not so much warrant as despair that frost will bite them.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part 1.3
“A good wit will make use of anything.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part 1.2
“A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part 1.2
“Byzantine art was anonymous and impersonal. In the art of western Europe, at any rate since the late Middle ages, individual personalities attract much of our attention, so that the history of European art does not concern itself merely with the evolution of forms: it is also the story of persons who lived known lives, who introduced innovations, who expressed their opinions on art, who exerted an influence on other known artists. Nothing of the kind applied to Byzantine art. In Byzantium artists were regarded as craftsmen and no interest was felt in recording their names or their personalities.” – Cyril Mango, “The Ideal Life,” Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things, and drowns them in the depths of obscurity, no matter if they be quite unworthy of mention, or most noteworthy and important, and thus, as the tragedian says, ‘he brings from the darkness all things to the birth, and all things born envelops in the night.’ But the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and to some extent checks its irresistible flow, and, of all things done in it, as many as history has taken over, it secures and binds together, and does not allow them to slip away into the abyss of oblivion.” – Anna Comnena, Alexiad (trans. Elizabeth A. S. Dawes)
“The body of history is indeed mute and empty if it is deprived of the causes of actions.” – Theophanes Continuatis (as quoted by Cyril Mango in Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome)
“Open your ears; for which of you will stop the vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? I, from the orient to the drooping west, making the wind my post-horse, still unfold the acts commenced on this ball of earth. Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, the which in every language I pronounce, stuffing the ears of men with false reports. I speak of peace, while covert enmity, under the smile of safety, wounds the world: And who but Rumour, who but only I, make fearful musters and prepar’d defence; whilst the big year, swoln with some other grief, is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, and no such matter? Rumour is a pipe blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures; and of so easy and so plain a stop that the blunt monster with uncounted heads, the still-discordant wavering multitude, can play upon it.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Second Part Induction
“The city was the setting of dances and jests, of taverns, baths and brothels. Women went about with uncovered heads. Everything about them was indecent: their speech, their gestures, their costume, their hair-style, the movement of their limbs and the sidelong glances they cast. Young men, too, such as were to be seen in the city, simulated effeminacy and let their hair grow long. Indeed, people went so far as to decorate their boots.” – Cyril Mango, “The Ideal Life,” Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“Anti-feminism was a fundamental tenet of Byzantine thinking until the sporadic introduction of western ideas of romantic love in about the twelfth century. The sight of a woman, we are told, is like a poisoned arrow: the longer the poison remains in the soul, the more corruption it produces. There was, of course, such a thing as a virtuous woman: it was the one who never showed her face to a stranger. Generally, however, she was a crawling worm, the daughter of mendacity, the enemy of peace. The catalogue of her vices and weaknesses is endless: she was frivolous, garrulous, and licentious. Above all, she was addicted to luxury and expense. She loaded herself with jewellery, powdered her face, painted her cheeks with rouge, scented her garments and thus made herself into a deadly trap to seduce young men through all their senses. No amount of wealth was sufficient to satisfy a woman’s desires. Day and night she thought of nothing but gold and precious stones, of purple cloth and embroidery, of ointments and perfumes. Were it not for sexual desire, no man in his right mind would wish to share his house with a woman and suffer the consequent injuries, in spite of the domestic services she performed. That is why God, knowing her contemptible nature, provided her from the beginning with the weapon of sexuality. Oblivious to the sorrows that awaited them, Byzantine men continued to marry.” – Cyril Mango, “The Ideal Life,” Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“The human soul was visualized as a citadel that had to be vigilantly guarded against external attack. Its weakest points were its gates which were five in number, corresponding to the five senses. The first gate, that of speech, needed to be fortified by the braces and cross-bars consisting in the constant recitation of Holy Scripture: in this way all undesirable entrants would be excluded. The second gate was that of hearing: it was essential not to admit through it any idle gossip or anything unseemly. The third gate, that of smell, had to be bolted in the face of all sweet scents which had the effect of slackening the ‘tension’ of the soul. The gate of sight was particularly exposed; hence it was important to see as few women as possible and avoid the theatre. The proper function of sight was to behold the beauties of nature. The fifth gate, that of touch, had to be guarded against soft clothing, comfortable beds and contact with other human bodies.” – Cyril Mango, “The Ideal Life,” Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“To die is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.4
“Thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.4
“The time of life is very short! To spend that shortness basely were too long, if life did ride upon a dial’s point, still ending at the arrival of an hour.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.2
“Treason is but trusted like the fox, who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d, and lock’d up, will have a wild trick of his ancestors.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.2
“Can honour set-to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word, honour? What is that honour? air. A trim reckoning!—Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.1
“Thou owest God a death.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.1
“Nothing can seem foul to those that win.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 5.1
“Whatever the shortages of equipment that may have remained in the Pacific by the fall of 1944, none was so serious as the shortage of troop labor to perform the thousand and one tasks involved in the operation of a supply line in territory where facilities were primitive and native labor either nonexistent or totally unskilled. The shortage of service troops in the Pacific was a chronic condition—one that began with the arrival of the first American troops and endured until the end of the war. It was a contributing factor to practically every other problem of Pacific logistics. The shortage of port battalions contributed to every instance of ship congestion, the shortage of Quartermaster troops to every instance of spoiled rations, that of Engineer construction battalions to every instance of failure to build airfields, roads, and other facilities on time. The inadequate supply of service troops imposed far more severe limitations on the pace of the Pacific advance than did the supply of combat units. As General Somervell wrote from the South Pacific in September 1943, it was not ‘a case of “frills”—but one of getting beans, shoes and bullets to the men who are fighting and to save those fighting from being laid out with pestilence,’ of building facilities at primitive bases which the Japanese did not have the resources or ability to match. ‘It would be a great mistake,’ he said, not to supply service troops ‘in full measure and make the most of this advantage.’” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“God rules mankind by inspiring fear of Hell and promising reward in Heaven, in other words with a stick and a carrot. Likewise, the Emperor governs his subjects through fear: his enemies are thrown in prison, banished, disciplined by the whip, deprived of their eyesight or of their life. Even innocent people ‘serve him in trembling’: they may be sent into battle or given unpleasant tasks, but no one dares to disobey.” – Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome
“Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 2.4
“If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work; but when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come, and nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 1.2
“Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, First Part 1.2
“The first Engineer units sent out were too lightly equipped; they did not have either adequate quantities of equipment or heavy enough equipment for clearing jungles and building in jungle terrain. The initial conception, in fact, was apparently that much of the construction work in the Pacific would be pick and shovel work. It soon became clear that one of the principal points of American superiority over the enemy lay in heavy construction equipment—bulldozers, cranes, rollers, graders, crushers, drilling equipment, power shovels, power saw mills, and so forth—that could do the work of many men.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The War Against Japan, 1943-44,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“A light wife doth make a heavy husband.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1
“The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark when neither is attended; and, I think, the nightingale, if she should sing by day, when every goose is cackling, would be thought no better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season’d are to their right praise and true perfection!” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1
“The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus: let no such man be trusted.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 5.1
“He is well paid that is well satisfied.” – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 4.1