Quotes about abbey

A collection of quotes on the topic of abbey, age, use, greatness.

Quotes about abbey

H.P. Lovecraft photo
Brian Jacques photo
Julian Fellowes photo

“What is a week-end? Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.”

Julian Fellowes (1949) English actor, dramatist, director, novelist, producer and screenwriter
Edmund White photo
John Constable photo

“Our little drawing Room [Constable's lodgings at Hamptstead with a view on London] commands a view unequalled in Europe — from Westminster Abbey to Gravesend — the dome of St Paul's in the Air — realizes Michael Angelo's Idea on seeing that of the Pantheon — 'I will build such a thing in the Sky.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to Rev. John Fisher (26 August 1827); as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 473
1820s

“If we can find the will I strongly believe we can still make Britain’s approach to talent a bit more X-factor (without Simon Cowell) and a bit less Downton Abbey.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Jo Cox: Opportunity must knock in a fairer society http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/jo-cox-opportunity-must-knock-in-a-fairer-society-1-6857022 (24 September 2014)

Horatio Nelson photo

“Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage, or Westminster Abbey.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Before the Battle of the Nile (1 August 1797), as quoted in Life of Nelson, Ch. 5; alternately reported as "Westminster Abbey, or victory!"
1790s

Erving Goffman photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“Boughton together with Abbey are making for Harper in New York drawings called "Picturesque Holland".... now I say to myself if the Graphic and Harper send their draughtsmen to Holland they would perhaps not be unwilling to accept a draughtsman from Holland [Vincent himself], if he can furnish some good work for not too much money. I should prefer to be accepted on regular monthly wages rather than to sell a drawing now and then at a relatively high price.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 288) p. 21
1880s, 1883

Marguerite Yourcenar photo
Horatio Nelson photo

“Victory or Westminster Abbey.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Life of Nelson Vol. I, Ch. 4 : In the battle off Cape Vincent, giving order for boarding the San Josef
1800s

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Robert Henryson photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Anatole France photo
Michael Moorcock photo
John Calvin photo
Henry Adams photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Yevgeny Zamyatin photo

“Instead of the Sermon on the Mount, under the scorching sun, to up-raised arms and sobbing people, there is drowsy prayer in a magnificent abbey.”

Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884–1937) Russian author

On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Matters (1923)
Context: When the flaming, seething sphere (in science, religion, social life, art) cools, the fiery magma becomes coated with dogma—a rigid, ossified, motionless crust. Dogmatization in science, religion, social life, or art is the entropy of thought. What has become dogma no longer burns; it only gives off warmth — it is tepid, it is cool. Instead of the Sermon on the Mount, under the scorching sun, to up-raised arms and sobbing people, there is drowsy prayer in a magnificent abbey. Instead of Galileo's "But still, it turns!" there are dispassionate computations in a well-heated room in an observatory. On the Galileos, the epigones build their own structures, slowly, bit by bit, like corals. This is the path of evolution — until a new heresy explodes the crush of dogma and all the edifices of the most enduring stone which have been raised upon it.
Explosions are not very comfortable. And therefore the exploders, the heretics, are justly exterminated by fire, by axes, by words. To every today, to every evolution, to the laborious, slow, useful, most useful, creative, coral-building work, heretics are a threat. Stupidly, recklessly, they burst into today from tomorrow; they are romantics.

Henry Adams photo

“The Abbey was the highest administrative creation of the middle ages.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
Context: Every ounce of food must be brought from the mainland, or fished from the sea. All the tenants and their farms, their rents and contributions, must be looked after. No secular prince had a more serious task of administration, and none did it so well. Tenants always preferred an Abbot or Bishop for landlord. The Abbey was the highest administrative creation of the middle ages.

Suzan-Lori Parks photo

“Black people have had to become great at seeing ourselves where we are not present because that’s where we grew up. I see myself in Downton Abbey. Even before they introduced the black character, I was right there. Some weeks I was upstairs, some weeks I was downstairs! But it is different when you have a character who looks like you, so I’m glad to have plugged that gap a little bit.”

Suzan-Lori Parks (1963) American writer

On the United Kingdom being behind the United States when it comes to incorporating Black characters in “Suzan-Lori Parks: 'People in America are often encouraged not to think'” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/sep/21/suzan-lori-parks-interview-royal-court-father-comes-home-from-the-wars-obama in The Guardian (2016 Sep 21)