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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

18th Century Quotes

Yiddish, originally, in Eastern Europe was considered the language of children, of the illiterate, of women. And 500 years later, by the 19th century, by the 18th century, writers realized that, in order to communicate with the masses, they could no longer write in Hebrew. They needed to write in Yiddish, the language of the population.

– Ilan Stavans

Beginning in the late 18th century, some German scholars began to regard Holy Scripture not as a single revelation but a sequence of inspired texts that occurred in specific times and places and were subject to varied and multiple meanings.

– Jay Parini

I would love to do a period piece – in the 18th or 17th century. To me, it would be such an incredible challenge because of the way people carried themselves. There are so many incredible stories within those centuries – just the language and the way they carried themselves and what they were going through.

– Amy Smart

One my favorite things is to go to the provinces of Russia and see the 18th century wood churches with the onion dome architecture. These humble wonders of incredible imagination of architects that were obviously not living in places like Paris or London, but they’ve created these amazing churches.

– Andre Leon Talley

Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. It’s very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover God’s great plan.

– Bernard Beckett

Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the 18th century myself, or the 19th either, for that matter.

– Barbara Ehrenreich

Right up until the late 18th century, when the first weighted lines were used to probe the ocean depths, many people believed the seas were bottomless – the watery equivalent of infinite outer space.

– Alan Huffman

The fact is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century – it was actually mummified, skin and all – but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire.

– Adam Savage

Lives in previous centuries for women are largely a matter of class. It would have been fun to have been a rich, privileged woman in the 18th century, but no fun at all to be her maid.

– Antonia Fraser

Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.

– Bill Bryson

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.

– M. H. Abrams

German writers in the late 18th century were the first to uphold a prickly, literary nationalism, in reaction to the then dominance and prestige of French literature.

– Pankaj Mishra

I’m very happy in my 18th century worker’s cottage in Kent and playing my music for the dog-walkers paused outside.

– Christian McKay

It would be just as pointless to oppose the international use of English today as it would have been to oppose the worldwide use of French in the 18th century.

– Maurice Allais

The imminent demise of the church has been predicted since the middle of the 18th century. This is the regular secular mantra if churchgoing declines. I could take you to plenty of churches that are full to bursting and new churches being built.

– N. T. Wright

The way Fatboy Slim layers motifs is the same as 18th-century baroque counterpoint. You have an idea, then you have an answer to the idea in another voice, then you have a counter idea accompanying the original idea, and you build up your texture like that. I’m really into Kruder and Dorfmeister at the moment, and they do the same thing.

– Charles Hazlewood

There were no vampires of note in Western literature until about the 18th century. But they tell us where we park our anxieties, whether its over-powerful women, death or damnation. We make our own monsters.

– Deborah Harkness

It’s a very 18th-century thing to have a book broken into several volumes.

– Matthew Tobin Anderson

I am interested in 18th century natural philosophy, science, particularly botany, the study of hybridity in plants and animals, which, of course, then allows me to consider the hybridity of language.

– Natasha Trethewey

If you go to old houses on Long Island you will see painted Chinese wallpaper, which was big in the 18th century. Throughout history, notable, established families have always tried to link to the 18th century.

– Catherine Martin

Spending time on 18th-century ships in Tahiti when I was 17 was quite unusual.

– Dexter Fletcher

I went with the old adage that you should write what you know. What I knew was 18th century Britain, so what I decided I would do is write a novel based on my dissertation research.

– David Liss

I am a person of the 18th century.

– Cecilia Bartoli

In the cold and snow-rich Silesian winters, there were hour-long rides on Sundays in horse-drawn sleighs to my maternal grandparent’s farm to have lunch and to spend the afternoon. The house was a magnificent 18th-century manor house in the nearby Altgabel with a great hall that was decorated with hunting trophies.

– Gunter Blobel

I was always fascinated, even as a child, by antiques and ancient times. I always felt I should have been born in the 17th or 18th century. They really had a big stone castle with authentic furniture.

– Margaret O’Brien

Also, an area that interests me – and it will probably take years to state what I mean – is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

– Fiona Shaw

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It’s probably the music that belongs most to our time.

– Michael Tippett

I would still love to do more Handel. I think Handel was a fantastic composer. I did lots of Vivaldi, but it’s also important to do the music of Handel, one of the greatest composers of the 18th century.

– Cecilia Bartoli

Detroit’s industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.

– P. J. O’Rourke

I would say I’m a 19th-century liberal, possibly even an 18th-century one.

– Niall Ferguson

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