renaissance quotes

In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters.

-John Robert Fowles
  The French Lieutenant's Woman, ch.10.

   I have now reached the point where I can look over the great art of antiquityand its Renaissance.But, for myself, I cannot find anyartistic connection with ourown times. And to want to create something outside of one's own age strikes me as suspect.

- Paul Klee
^2  The Diaries of Paul Klee1898^1918, entry 294.

Our whole history inclines us towards the democratic powers.Our renaissance is a logical link between us and the democracies of the west.

-Toma  s Garrigue Masaryk
  Inaugural address, 23 Dec.

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshedthey produced Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.

- (George) Orson Welles
  Harry Lime's speech to Holly Martins as he leaves the great wheel,TheThird Man.This phrase was added to the script by Welles who played Harry Lime.