David ben Judah Messer Leon (Venice, c. 1470 – Salonica, c. 1526) was an Italian rabbi, physician and writer, who defended the value of secular disciplines and the Renaissance humanities as an important part of traditional Jewish studies.
Famous quotes containing the words david, ben and/or leon:
“Why should not our furniture be as simple as the Arab’s or the Indian’s? When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“Can’t get Indiana off my mind, that’s the place I long to see.”
—Robert De Leon (1904–1961)