Seventeenth Century Quotes

“By the mid-seventeenth century, the visible image has assumed far greater reality than the invisible thought.”
― Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe 

“I am Calumny Spinks.
Between me and the satin blue sky hangs the hempen noose.
It has swung there in the faintest of breezes, waiting for me, all my life.”
― Piers Alexander, The Bitter Trade

“When Marguerite (Marguerite-Louise of France, Grand Duchess of Tuscany), caught malaria, she claimed the royal family of Tuscany was trying to murder her, but that she would, in fact, rather die than return to her husband. Louis XIV asked the pope to threaten excommunication if Marguerite persisted, and the pontiff sent her a harsh letter. She didn't fear hell, she replied she was already living in it.”
― Eleanor Herman, Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics

“He's rich," Jack muttered to Eliza, "or connected with rich persons."
"Yes—the clothes, the coins ..."
"All fakeable."
"How do you know him to be rich, then?"
"In the wilderness, only the most terrible beasts of prey cavort and gambol. Deer and rabbits play no games."
(Jack Shaftoe and Eliza)”
― Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

“The church of England could never become the church of England's Empire. . . The sovereign and his heir [Charles II and James], by policy if not by conviction, were religious tolerationists even more in the empire than in England. In the colonies, the royal brothers were free from the predominance of the church, and they wielded overseas an authority far less fettered than it was in England. The duke and the king therefore ordered their viceroys to tolerate all religions privately practiced and peaceably conducted. Under the later Stuarts, "Greater Britain" became truly tolerant. Great Britain did not. (p193)”
― Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence

“In the forty years from 1600 to 1640, when Margaret reached the age of seventeen, only forty-two books by women had been printed, and of these only seven wore literary works.”
― Katie Whitaker, Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, the First Woman to Live by Her Pen