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Quotes by Historian
"The more I have studied Lincoln, the more I have followed his thought processes, the more I am convinced that he understood leadership better than any other American president."
38
"The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition."
38
"The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do? How much is luck the deciding factor?"
38
"All science is a charted ignorance and belongs to Maya."
38
"But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."
38
"Time (again, Time) like the soul, wears many faces, many bodies and climates and attitudes. The past is one face, the present a second and the future yet another."
38
"I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals."
38
"Two things a wise man never discloses to the public, his money and his women."
38
"The ABC of our profession is to avoid these large abstract terms in order to try to discover behind them the only concrete realities, which are human beings."
38
"Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis."
38
"History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us."
38
"A superstition which pretends to be scientific creates a much greater confusion of thought than one which contents itself with simple popular practices."
38
"Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it."
38
"Television has made places look alike, and it has transformed the way we see. A whole generation of Americans, maybe two, has grown up looking at the world through a lens."
38
"The Commonwealth has had consistently bad press. It was originally seen as a kind of hangover empire. People have long predicted its demise."
38
"The author takes the position that the consumer pays the tax, and as such every individual of the social order should be given unlimited opportunity to make the most of himself."
38
"We must never throw away a bushel of truth because it happens to contain a few grains of chaff."
38
"Rainer Maria Rilke greeted and wrestled with the angels of his Duino Elegies in the solitude of a castle surrounded by white cliffs tall trees and the sea. I greeted most of mine in the solitude of a house that still vibrated with the throbs of a singular life that had helped shape many lives and with the ache of attempts to render useful service to that life. The River of Winged Dreams was therefore constructed as a link between dimensions of past and future emotions and intellect and matter and spirit."
38
"Behind every great man is a man greater, his father."
38
"The dancing vortex of a sacred metaphor clashes horns and halos to make wounded music set to the tempo of a new era in brilliant labor."
38
"On either side of a potentially violent conflict, an opportunity exists to exercise compassion and diminish fear based on recognition of each other's humanity. Without such recognition, fear fueled by uninformed assumptions, cultural prejudice, desperation to meet basic human needs, or the panicked uncertainty of the moment explodes into violence."
38
"Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes."
37
"There is a curious relationship between a candidate and the reporters who cover him. It can be affected by small things like a competent press staff, enough seats, sandwiches and briefings and the ability to understand deadlines."
37
"We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place."
37
"For long, history was mainly political history, and historical narrative was confined to an account of the most important crises in political life, or to an account of wars and great generals."
37
"In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well."
Work,
37
"I think you will find scientists that think like you in Germany and Britain, and you will find politicians that think like Weinberger. I think the most bellicose ruling group in the Western world at the moment is the British."
37
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
37
"In this respect early youth is exactly like old age; it is a time of waiting for a big trip to an unknown destination. The chief difference is that youth waits for the morning limited and age waits for the night train."
37
"Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim."
37
"Compared with the thousands of years in which human life has been on this planet, Christianity is a recent development."
37
"I think that black Africa is extremely terrifying. Black Africa can become a maelstrom of warring tribes without the outside world needing to feel the need to do anything about it."
37
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