Famous quotes
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Said in the 1400s
“Invadat animum sacra quaedam ambitio ut mediocribus non contenti anhelemus ad summa, adque illa (quando possumus si volumus) consequenda totis viribus enitamur.”
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) said by 1494 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine.”
Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) said by 1498 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 481
“He who does not know how to dissemble, knows not how to reign.”
Louis XI (1423–1483) said by 1483 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Maxim of Louis XI, cited in Classical and Foreign Quotations (1904), no. 2304
“The Alcoran says the highest dignity man can attain is that of making war in person against the enemies of his religion. Mahomet advises the same thing, according to the tradition of the Mussulman doctors: wherefore the great Temur always strove to exterminate the infidels, as much to acquire that glory, as to signalise himself by the greatness of his conquests.”
Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi (1500–1454) said by 1454 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 4, ch. 2 (tr. J. Darby, 1723)
“When the skie falth we shall have Larkes.”
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) said by 1400 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“Semper in his magis cupiens doceri, quam docere.”
Gabriel Biel (1418–1495) said by 1495 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He hath the sor which no man heleth, The which is cleped lack of herte.”
John Gower (1330–1408) said by 1408 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Atto regale e intender la ragione.”
Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441–1495) said by 1495 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Misfortune comes uninvited”
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368–1437) said by 1437 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Li rois d'Engleterre et li sien, qui s'en venoient tout singlant, regardent et voient devers l'Escluse si grant quantité de vaissiaus que des mas ce sambloient droitement uns bos.”
Jean Froissart (1337–1410) said by 1410 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was out of his devotion to the religion of the Turushkas, not out of antipathy towards the twice-born, that he oppressed the Brahmanas; and hence his victims did not much complain. This was what Suhabhatta told them inorder to remove the impression which his actions created that he had antipathy towards the Brahmanas.”
Jonaraja (died 1459) said by 1459 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am your leader: follow me.”
Richard II of England (1367–1400) said by 1400 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to the peasants at Smithfield, London, during the Peasants' Revolt, quoted in Gwilym Dodd, The Reign of Richard II (Tempus, 2000), p. 20
“Children say that people are hanged sometimes for speaking the truth.”
Joan of Arc (1412–1431) said by 1431 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From the trial transcript, as quoted in World Famous Women: Types of Female Heroism, Beauty, and Influence from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (1881) by Frank Boott Goodrich, p. 126
“There is no rose Spryngyng in gardeyns, but ther be sum thorn.”
John Lydgate (1370–1450) said by 1450 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.”
Thomas Malory (1405–1471) said by 1471 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Sikandar’s successor Sultan Zainul Abedin (aka Shahi Khan, r. 1417–67), another deviant Muslim ruler, permitted the converted Hindus to revert, records Sydney Owen, ‘many Hindus (i.e., Hindus converted to Islam by force) were re-admitted into the Hindu fold.’”
Zain-ul-Abidin (1401–1470) said by 1470 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in M.A. Khan , Islamic Jihad: A legacy of forced conversion, imperialism and slavery (2011), quoting Owen S (1987) From Mahmud Ghazni to the Disintegration of Mughal Empire, Kanishka Publishing House, New Delhi,
“God is my witness that I have never taught or preached that which false witnesses have testified against me. He knows that the great object of all my preaching and writing was to convert men from sin. In the truth of that gospel which hitherto I have written, taught and preached, I now joyfully die.”
Jan Hus (1370–1415) first seen 1415 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jan Hus (1415); quoted in: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, Volume 12, 1891, p. 401
“Hic situs est Janus, patrium qui primus ad Histrum, duxit laurigeras, ex Helicone Deas. Hunc saltem titulum, Livor, permitte sepulto, invidiae non est in monumenta locus.”
Janus Pannonius (1434–1472) said by 1472 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are terrified of future catastrophes and are thrown into a continuous state of misery and anxiety, and for fear of becoming miserable, we never cease to be so, always panting for riches and never giving our souls or our bodies a moment’s peace. But those who are content with little live day by day and treat any day like a feast day.”
Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) first seen 1416 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Niccolò de' Niccoli, Baden, 18 May 1416 (tr. P. W. G. Gordan, 1974)
“Tuit estrangier l'aiment et ameront, Car pour deduit et pour estre jolis, Jamais cité tele ne trouveront: Riens ne se puet comparer a Paris.”
Eustache Deschamps (1340–1406) said by 1406 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quant j'ay la terre et mer avironnée", line 17; text and translation from Ian S. Laurie and Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi (eds.), David Curzon and Jeffrey Fiskin (trans.) Eustache Deschamps: Selected Poems (London: Routledg…
“One would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally.”
John Fortescue (1394–1479) said by 1479 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 27 (ed. Amos, 1825)