415 pages
Rating: (419 votes)
“Geometry is 'number in space', music is 'number in time'.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“In a seven-tone scale the eighth note is the octave, twice the pitch of the first note, and so signals the movement to a new level. This may be why, in religious symbolism, the eighth step is often associated with spiritual evolution or salvation.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Islamic patterns speak of infinity and the omnipresent center.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Ludwig Schlafi (1814-1895) proved that there are six regular four-dimensional polytopes (generalisations of polyhedra): the 5-cell made of tetrahedra, the 8-cell or tesseract made of cubes, the 16-cell made of tetrahedra, the 24-cell made of octahedra, the 120-cell made of dodecahedra, and the 600-cell made of tetrahedra.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Many familiar objects from cassettes to credit cards and Georgian front doors are Phi (1.618...) rectangles.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“When one circle is drawn over another like this so that they pass through each others' centers, then an important almond shape, the vesica piscis, literally 'fish's bladder' is formed. It is one of the first things that circles can do. Christ is often depicted inside a vesica.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“The dodecagon is also made from six squares and six equilateral triangles fitted around a hexagon”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Twelve is the number which fits around one in three dimensions in the same way that six fits around one in two dimensions. The New Testament is a story of a teacher surrounded by twelve disciples.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Ten is formed from two pentagons and ten life-invoking pentagons sit perfectly arpund a decagon, and DNA, appropriately as the key to the reproduction of life, has ten steps for each turn of its double helix, so appears in cross-section as a tenfold rosette.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Eleven is important as the first number that allows us to begin to comprehend the measure of a circle. This is because, for practical purposes, a circle measuring seven across will measure eleven halfway around.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“Venus draws a fivefold pattern around Earth every eight years allowing us to draw an amazing diagram. In those eight years there are almost exactly 99 full moons, nine elevens, the number of names or reflections of Allah in Islam. Jupiter draws a beautiful elevenfold pattern around Earth.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“The ancient Maya were superb stargazers. Their calendar synchronized not just the Sun and Moon, byt also Venus and Mars. They worked out that 81 (or 3X3X3X3) full moons occur exactly every 2,392 (or 8X13X23) days, an astonishingly accurate gearing.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“The ancients were obsessed with measures, and the number eleven is central in their metrological scheme. Shown opposite is the extraordinary fact that the size of the Moon relates to the size of the Earth as does three to eleven. What this means is that if we draw down the Moon to the Earth, as shown, then a heavenly circle through the moon will have a circumference equal to the perimeter of a square around the Earth. This is called 'squaring the circle'. Quite how the old druids worked this out we may never know, but they clearly did, for the Moon and the Earth are best measured in miles, as shown. A double rainbow also magically squares the circle.”
― quote from Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology
“After all, if I started confiding my innermost problems to someone, I'd have to do something about them. And I'm not ready for that yet.”
― Kathleen Tessaro, quote from Elegance
“Some secrets are like fossils and the stone has become too heavy to turn over.”
― Delphine de Vigan, quote from No and Me
“Премина един трамвай, сигурно беше първият, излязъл от депото, най-обикновен трамвай, като всички останали, избелял и стар – този трамвай може да ме е виждал как тичам, а след мен Кимет, когато изтичахме като пощръклели откъм площад „Диамант“. Нещо застана на гърлото ми, като зърно нахут, забило се в мъжеца. Зави ми се свят, затворих очи и вятърът, кой то направи трамваят, ме тласна напред, сякаш животът ми си отиваше. И при първата си крачка още виждах трамвая как преминава с голяма скорост и пуска червени и сини искри между колелата и релсите. Сякаш вървях в празно пространство , очите ми не виждаха, всеки миг си мислех, че ще потъна, пресякох, стиснала здраво ножа, без да виждам сини светлини. На отсрещната страна се обърнах и погледнах с очите си и душата си и не можех да повярвам, че е станало невъзможното. Бях пресякла. Вървях по предишния си живот, докато стигнах до стената на къщата, под покрития балкон…”
― Mercè Rodoreda, quote from The Time of the Doves
“So you're, like crazy, in love. You open your eyes in the morning and your first thought is her. You wonder how she is. What she's doing. When you can see her again. Those thoughts stay with you all day. You share them with whoever will listen — including your best friends, who of course respect you but, after a while, out of the kind of concern only real friends have, seriously question your sanity. And you make all sorts of plans — big plans, like, post-high school — when the rest of us can barely wrap our heads around the fact that we only two years left to get a clue.
You live and breath this girl. You talk about her all the time, you hang out with your friends less and less, you're blind to other girls, no matter how hot or into you they are — and some of them are extremely hot and into you — and eventually, you break and actually say you love her.
Not only that, you tell your friends you love her. Which, as you know, is about as major as you can get.
Your friends may think you're a little out there, but they know you wouldn't be for any other girl. It's just because it's her. She's different.
This girl is it for you. Food, water, oxygen, sleep — all details.”
― Tricia Rayburn, quote from Siren
“Tears of joy are so much easier to stop.”
― David Cristofano, quote from The Girl She Used to Be
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.