“On this principle of arrangement, the voice, uttered from the stage as from a centre, and spreading and striking against the cavities of the different vessels, as it comes in contact with them, will be increased in clearness of sound, and will wake an harmonious note in unison with itself.”

—  Vitruvius , book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book V, Chapter V, Sec. 3

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "On this principle of arrangement, the voice, uttered from the stage as from a centre, and spreading and striking agains…" by Vitruvius?
Vitruvius photo
Vitruvius 203
Roman writer, architect and engineer -80–-15 BC

Related quotes

Vitruvius photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo

“The peoples' revolution …. will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with the principle of liberty.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Program and Object of the Secret Revolutionary Organisation of the International Brotherhood (1868)
Context: The peoples' revolution.... will arrange its revolutionary organisation from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre, in keeping with the principle of liberty.

Taliesin photo

“When the trees were enchanted,
In the expectation of not being trees,
The trees uttered their voices
From strings of harmony,
The disputes ceased.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Battle of the Trees
Context: When the trees were enchanted,
In the expectation of not being trees,
The trees uttered their voices
From strings of harmony,
The disputes ceased.
Let us cut short heavy days,
A female restrained the din.
She came forth altogether lovely.
The head of the line, the head was a female.
The advantage of a sleepless cow
Would not make us give way.
The blood of men up to our thighs,
The greatest of importunate mental exertions
Sported in the world.
And one has ended
From considering the deluge,
And Christ crucified
And the day of judgement near at hand.

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Jennifer Donnelly photo
Vitruvius photo

“Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact. It moves in an endless number of circular rounds, like the innumerably increasing circular waves which appear when a stone is thrown into smooth water, and which keep on spreading indefinitely from the centre unless interrupted by narrow limits, or by some obstruction which prevents such waves from reaching their end in due formation. When they are interrupted by obstructions, the first waves, flowing back, break up the formation of those which follow.”

Alternate translation: The voice is a flowing breath, made sensible to the organ of hearing by the movements it produces in the air. It is propagated in infinite numbers of circular zones, exactly as when a stone is thrown into a pool of standing water countless circular undulations are generated therein, which, increasing as they recede from the center, spread out over a great distance, unless the narrowness of the locality or some obstacle prevent their reaching their termination; for the first line or waves, when impeded by obstructions, throw by their backward swell the succeeding circular lines of waves into confusion. Quoted by Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of its Development (1893, 1960) Tr. Thomas J. McCormack
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book V, Chapter IV, Sec. 6

John Dryden photo

“From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

St. 1.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)
Context: From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
'Arise, ye more than dead!'
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

Giovanni Morassutti photo

“The sound of the human voice is the best of nature but only if it comes out from the feelings.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

From the official website

Julie Gold photo
Omar Khayyám photo

“Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
FitzGerald's first edition (1859).
The Rubaiyat (1120)

Related topics