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:
“I do not see why, since America and her autumn woods have been discovered, our leaves should not compete with the precious stones in giving names to colors; and, indeed, I believe that in course of time the names of some of our trees and shrubs, as well as flowers, will get into our popular chromatic nomenclature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn’t order any credit cards! We don’t spend what we don’t have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”
—Sarah Louise Delany (b. 1889)
“An epigram is only a wisecrack that’s played at Carnegie Hall.”
—Oscar Levant (1906–1972)