Medieval Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old medieval quotes, medieval sayings, and medieval proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity, romantic love and gunpowder. Andre Maurois
Your chances of dying a violent death are 1/500th of what they used to be during medieval times. Peter Diamandis
Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing higher, nothing stronger, nothing larger, nothing more joyful, nothing fuller, and nothing better in heaven or on earth. Thomas a Kempis
Thank goodness we don't live in medieval times, when people fought wars over ideas. Wojciech Jaruzelski
To the medieval mind the possibility of doubt did not exist. William Manchester
Set out on pilgrimage and triumph gloriously over the infidels in the East. Orderic Vitalis
The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit. Avicenna
As the medieval mind blamed God for human suffering, so the modern mind blames 'the system' for the industrial blight and plague of technology Jennifer Stone
Medievalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods - Medievalism is real Christianity, and the medieval Christ is the real Christ. Oscar Wilde
Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear. Isidore of Seville
Do there exist many worlds, or is there but a single world? This is one of the most noble and exalted questions in the study of Nature. Albertus Magnus
In the absence of evidence, superstition. It's a Middle Ages thing. That's my theory anyway. Tucker Carlson
We are living in modern times throughout the world and yet are dominated by medieval minds. Eqbal Ahmad
In the Middle Ages, cathedrals and convents burned like tinder; imagining a medieval story without a fire is like imagining a World War II movie in the Pacific without a fighter plane shot down in flames. Umberto Eco
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. William of Ockham
Most of the tools from medieval times were extensions of the physical self. Tools are now extensions of the mental self. Lotoya Peterson
Medieval and ancient sensibility now dominates our time as acoustic and multisensory awareness displaces the merely visual. Marshall McLuhan
Nothing is unobtainable to the sword. Lord Dunsany
The medievalist has the capacity, and the desire, to harmonize. He believes the planets sing in harmony; why cannot technology also sing? Douglas Wilson
In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion. Robert Runcie
The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is. Thomas Aquinas
There are some examples of medieval kings who were terrible human beings but were nevertheless good kings. George R. R. Martin
In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a dangerous form of spiritual alienation a devaluing of the world and its creator. Richard Louv
We can appreciate but not really understand the medieval town. We cannot comprehend its compactness, the contiguity of all its buildings as a single uninterrupted whole. Arthur Erickson
Medieval learning was really advanced. Terry Jones
Nothing good ever comes of violence. Martin Luther
Medieval justice was a quaint thing. Frederick Pollock
The medieval hall house was very primitive when it became the characteristic form of dwelling of the landowner of the Middle Ages. Stephen Gardiner
If there be some harder, better way to salvation than to follow that which we believe to be good, then are we all damned. Lord Dunsany
When the words come, they are merely empty shells without the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the music the spirit. Hildegard von Bingen