To understand Renaissance Humanism, we have to get to the source: the writers and thinkers that embodied these ideas.
First, write a definition of Renaissance Humanism in your own words.
Now, read the following quotes by Renaissance men. For each quote, write 1-2 sentences describing how the author and his thoughts reflect the spirit of humanism.
1. “What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension [understanding], how like a god! The beauty of the world; the paragon of animals” – Shakespeare, Hamlet
2. “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
3. “With the forethought that we are mortal, and that every adversity can befall us, let us do what the wise have so highly praised: let us work so that past and present will contribute to the times that have not yet come … To you, (man) is given a body more graceful than other animals, to you power of apt and various movements, to you most sharp and delicate senses, to you wit, reason, memory like an immortal god… A man can do all things if he will.” – Leon Battista Alberti
4. “It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.” – Desiderius Erasmus
5. “How beautiful is youth, which is always slipping away! Whoever wants to be happy, let him be so: of tomorrow there’s no knowing.” – Lorenzo De’ Medici
6. “Man in truth is a marvelous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.” – Michel de Montaigne
7. “The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.” – Miguel de Cervantes
8. “I have come to understand why man is the most fortunate of creatures and consequently worthy of all admiration and what precisely is that rank which is his lot in the universal chain of Being — a rank to be envied not only by brutes but even by the stars and by minds beyond this world. It is a matter past faith and a wondrous one. Why should it not be? For it is on this very account that man is rightly called and judged a great miracle and a wonderful creature indeed.” – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man
9. “For what folly would it be to pass all one’s life in toil and poverty and care, heaping up riches, just to die at last and have no time to enjoy them?” – Petrarch, the “father of Humanism”
