![Sir John Mandeville [was] an encyclopedist whose mostly invented stories still ring true, thanks to his gift for writing the first realistic Western fiction since Petronius. We do not know who this man was or even what language he wrote in, but modern textual analysis suggests that he rarely left his study. Rather than travel, he scavenged and plagiarized the works of others, improving their prose as he claimed their discoveries. In a period of continental isolation, Mandeville satisfied Europe's appetite for news by making up an East that sounded real. In expanding editions and translations, his Voyages and Travels became the most popular prose book of the Middle Ages. (John Mandeville)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/93/john-mandeville-analysis-appetite-451393.webp)
Sir John Mandeville [was] an encyclopedist whose mostly invented stories still ring true, thanks to his gift for writing the first realistic Western fiction since Petronius. We do not know who this man was or even what language he wrote in, but modern textual analysis suggests that he rarely left his study. Rather than travel, he scavenged and plagiarized the works of others, improving their prose as he claimed their discoveries. In a period of continental isolation, Mandeville satisfied Europe's appetite for news by making up an East that sounded real. In expanding editions and translations, his Voyages and Travels became the most popular prose book of the Middle Ages.
John MandevilleRelated topics
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Fear and love do not go together. Fear is constricting, self-centered and self-conscious, whereas love is expansive, selfless and directed towards service. To become effective spiritual warriors, we must learn to cultivate genuine love, courage, and compassion and come to depend on our inner faculties rather than externals. This allows us to understand our own true nature more deeply, and to behave more like the children and servants of God that we are. Then, firmly established in a higher state of consciousness, we can serve others-and the world-from the deepest, most aware and loving aspect of ourselves during these challenging times.
Bhakti Tirtha Swami
What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts ... for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals ... [He is] ... moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God.
Isaac the Syrian
William Shakespeare has probably done more to damage the cultural worth of Britain than anyone else in the whole of human history. After endlessly having to study his plays on the school curriculum, generations of children have ventured into adulthood convinced that all literature is coma-inducingly dreary. I don't blame them. Portia's speech about the 'gentle rain' is in no way as stimulating as 10 minutes of Grand Theft Auto. I believe that Shakespeare, along with Milton, Donne and Chaucer, has a place in modern Britain. And that place is deep in the bowels of the British Library, where he can be studied by hardcore language students.
Jeremy Clarkson
The success of mathematical physics led the social scientist to be jealous of its power without quite understanding the intellectual attitudes that had contributed to this power. The use of mathematical formulae had accompanied the development of the natural sciences and become the mode in the social sciences. Just as primitive peoples adopt the Western modes of denationalized clothing and of parliamentatism out of a vague feeling that these magic rites and vestments will at once put them abreast of modern culture and technique, so the economists have developed the habit of dressing up their rather imprecise ideas in the language of the infinitesimal calculus.
Norbert Wiener
The statistical study presented in the following pages may be best defined as an attempt to construct, on the basis of available statistical materials, a Tableau Economique of the United States for 1919 and 1929. One hundred and fifty years ago, when Quesnay first published his famous scheme, his contemporaries and disciples acclaimed it as the greatest discovery since Newton's laws. The idea of general interdepence among the various part of the economic system has become by now the very foundation of economic analysis. Yet, when it comes to the practical application of this theoretical tool, modern economists must rely exactly as Quesnay did upon fictitious numerical examples.
Wassily Leontief