Over recorded history, there have been many names of the Levant, a large area in the Middle East. These names have applied to a part or the whole of the Levant. On occasion, two or more of these names have been used at the same time by different cultures or sects. As a natural result, some of the names of the Levant are highly politically charged. Perhaps the least politicized name is Levant itself, which simply means "where the sun rises" or "where the land rises out of the sea", a meaning attributed to the region's easterly location on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
Famous quotes containing the words names of, names and/or levant:
“The names of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more so than that of Junius,—simply standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding Spirit of all Beauty, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“You shall see men you never heard of before, whose names you don’t know,... and many other wild and noble sights before night, such as they who sit in parlors never dream of.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.”
—Oscar Levant (1906–1972)