In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Welles contrasts chaotic periods that produced great art with peaceful ones that produced little.
- In plain terms
- Turbulent times created masterpieces while peaceful times made simple things.
- What can you take from it?
- Chaos can inspire great cultural achievements.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does conflict drive art?
- What defines cultural success?
Another view
Peace also produces many valuable but less visible achievements.
More from Orson Welles
This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character, to assure you that The War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering…
Permalink to quote #1 He [Welles] was an onlooker at the clumsy, poignant suicide of 'The Man on the Ledge,' which took place in New York in 1938, when a boy perched for fourteen ho…
Permalink to quote #3 A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.
Permalink to quote #4
Related quotes
I have lived in Germany and know its language and literature, and the spirit and ideals of its rulers. Having given many years to a study of American capitalis…
Upton SinclairUpton Sinclair quote #4 Firebugs dragging their gasoline bottles Are approaching the Academy of Arts, with a grin. And so, instead of embracing them, Let us demand the freedom of the …
Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht quote #15 China, up to 50 years ago, was completely non-homogenous, being compartmented into groups divided against each other. The war-making tendency was almost non-ex…
Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur quote #22