“When everybody owns everything nobody takes care of anything” Thomas Aquinas + Aristotle on private property Durant - The Age of Faith Vol. IV - Chapter XXXVI - Pg. 975

“He was sure his works would immortalize him, but he underestimated the forgetfulness of time” About Gerald of Wales in the 13th century Durant - The Age of Faith Vol. IV - Chapter XXXVII - Pg. 993

“No one has explained why little Iceland should have produced in this period such a scope of literature so out of proportion to its place and size” About Icelandic/Norse mythology, 13th Century (Snorri Sturluson) Durant - The Age of Faith Vol. IV - Chapter XXXVIII - Pg. 1032

“If a man so bitter could win a conducted tour through paradise we shall all be saved” About Dante and The Divine Comedy Durant - The Age of Faith Vol. IV - Chapter XXXIX - Pg. 1080

“We’ll never do justice to the Middle Ages until we see the Italian Renaissance not as their repudiation but as their fulfillment” Durant - The Age of Faith Vol. IV - Epilogue - Pg. 1085

“Paulus the aristocrat counseled caution; Varro of the plebs was all for action; and as usual, caution lost the argument” Italy 216 just before Rome got smashed by Hannibal at Cannae Durant - Caesar & Christ Vol. III - Ch. III - Pg. 50

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within” Durant - Caesar & Christ Vol. III - Epilogue - Pg. 665

“Rome died giving birth to the Church; the Church matured by inheriting and accepting the responsibilities of Rome” Durant - Caesar & Christ Vol. III - XXVIII - Pg. 619

“Military service was made compulsory, but was forbidden to inhabitants of Italy; henceforth provincial legions would choose emperors for a Rome that had lost the fortitude to rule” Durant - Caesar & Christ Vol. III - XXIX - Pg. 621

“As the state had not yet discovered the plan of public borrowing to conceal its wastefulness & postpone its reckoning, the cost of each year’s operations had to be met from each year’s revenue” Economy under Diocletian 301 AD Durant - Caesar & Christ Vol. III - XXIX - Pg. 643

“He hoped to negotiate a peace between Galeazzo II Visconti and Pope Urban V, only to learn that eloquence without guns finds no ears among diplomats” Petrarch 1368 in Pavia near Milan Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - I - Pg. 42

“Padre Patriae, Father of His Country. With him the Renaissance lifted its head; under his great-grandson it conquered Rome. Many sins may be forgiven to such a dynasty.” On Cosimo de Medici Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - III - Pg. 109

“Piero, aged fifty, succeeded to his (Cosimo’s) wealth, his authority, and his gout. Even from boyhood this disease of the prosperous had afflicted Piero, so that his contemporaries called him Il Gottoso” On Cosimo’s son Piero Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - III - Pg. 110

“Luther claimed to have found a saying current among the educated classes in Italy on going to Mass: ‘Come let us conform to the popular error.’” Italian attitudes mid 1500’s Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - XIX - Pg. 543

“But the soul of the great creed (Christianity) had been pierced with the arrows of doubt; and the splendor of the medieval myth had been tarnished by its accumulated gold.” Italian corruption Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - XIX - Pg. 544

“Pope Clement (Giulio de Medici) did not die until he made one more reversal of policy, and had crowned his disasters by losing England for the Church (1531).” Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - XXI - Pg. 644

“It is easier to rule a state in its decline than in its youth; diminished vitality almost welcomes subjugation.” Florence after decades of turmoil accepting the second Cosimo de Medici, 1540’s-1570’s Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - XXIII - Pg. 699

“(Italian Renaissance was) a hollow fabric of precarious power unsupported by inner strength, and ready to fall into ruins at the touch of a merciless rabble, or at the distant cry of an obscure and angry monk” Durant - The Renaissance Vol. V - Envoi - Pg. 726