Donald Weinstein > Quotes

“Given the limits of our knowledge of such psychological problems as belief and motivation, the question of sincerity ... is misleading and fruitless.”
― Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance

“All knowledge, including studia divinitatis, begins with communication, Salutati memorably declared, and his thesis was elaborated by his successors into a humanist credo: language is the link to reality, the basis of human community and of the connection between past and present.”
― Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet

“All knowledge, including studia divinitatis, begins with communication, Salutati memorably declared, and his thesis was elaborated by his successors into a humanist credo: language is the link to reality, the basis of human community and of the connection between past and present. Through language, therefore, we draw both upon our own knowledge of the world and upon the experience of all mankind and gain the information we need to make decisions and to act. Thus the study of language is central to all of human life, to religion as well as to government.”
― Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet

“Taken together the two observations sum up a main truth about prophets: not only do they profoundly connect to their time and place, they operate in profound tension with them. This explains both their spectacular success and their ultimate failure.”
― Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet

“to achieve his vision was beyond the power, or the will, of an imperfect humanity. Savonarola came to grief not, as Machiavelli declared, because unarmed prophets are bound to fail, but because like all prophets, armed or not, he mistook his own vision for the fulfillment of history—or, as he would have said, for God’s design.”
― Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet