Vermeer's Hat Quotes

“Orozco's despair was not just in finding himself poor, but in discovering that effort, honest intentions, and gentlemanly status had nothing to do with sucess in a commercial economy.”
― Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World

“Religious belief does not do away with either natural or human law from which sovereignty is derived.”
― Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World

“Zhang was scathing toward authors who write history by simply repeating ancient facts and dismissing recent developments. Such people perpetuate ignorance rather than produce knowledge.”
― Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World

“We see a seventeenth-century goblet and think: That is what a seventeenth-century goblet looks like, and isn’t it remarkably like/unlike (choose one) goblets today? We tend not to think: What is a goblet doing there? Who made it? Where did it come from? Why did the artist choose to include it instead of something else, a teacup, say, or a glass jar?”
― Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World