Thirteenth Century Quotes

The rise of the dramas in the thirteenth century, and the rise of the great novels in a later period, together with their frank glorification of love and the joys of life, may be called the Third Renaissance.

Since the thirteenth century at least,--that is, since the Magna Carta,--England has been the bulwark of modern law.

At a young age, when I was fascinated with China, I read 'The Travels of Marco Polo' and learned about this exciting, dramatic world he captured and reported on. He's so little known, but yet this mythology has survived that's so misrepresentative of his story.

Years ago, when I was in Siena for the first time, I saw the works of Duccio, whose deeply emotional painting from the thirteenth century has never left me.

It all goes back to 'Wow, I never knew this about Marco Polo.' This is an incredible story and an incredible character, and such a rich world of Mongolian and Chinese culture.

Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas

I feel like we are reintroducing historical figures, with the explorer Marco Polo and the grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, the ruler of the Mongol empire, the trading place that everybody wanted to get involved in.

Marco Polo has been kind of buried under this cloud of rather banal historical dust, when the true story is so much more exciting.

Even theologians, even the great theologians of the thirteenth century, even Saint Thomas Aquinas himself did not trust to faith alone, or assume the existence of God.

It was not till toward the end of the thirteenth century that the prose romances began to appear.