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Quotes by Historian
"Keep striving, for God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers."
23
"The ancient Roman code belongs to a class of which almost every civilised nation in the world can show a sample, and which, so far as the Roman and Hellenic worlds were concerned, were largely diffused over them at epochs not widely distant from one another."
23
"We also learn that this country and the Western world have no monopoly of goodness and truth and scholarship, we begin to appreciate the ingredients that are indispensable to making a better world. In a life of learning that is, perhaps, the greatest lesson of all."
23
"The inquiries of the jurist are in truth prosecuted much as inquiry in physic and physiology was prosecuted before observation had taken the place of assumption."
23
"There is within the human heart a quality of intelligence which has been known to surpass that attributed to the human mind."
22
"The Roman jurisprudence has the longest known history of any set of human institutions."
22
"God has given you a gift, why not open it?!"
22
"Voltaire theoretically prefers a republic, but he knows its flaws: it permits factions which, if they do not bring on civil war, at least destroy national unity; it is suited only to small states protected by geographic situation, and as yet unspoiled and untorn with wealth; in general 'men are rarely worthy to govern themselves.' Republics are transient at best; they are the first form of society, arising from the union of families; the American Indians lived in tribal republics, and Africa is full of such democracies. but differentiation of economic status puts an end to these egalitarian governments; and differentiation is the inevitable accompaniment of development."
22
"We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.' We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived."
22
"The most superficial student of Roman history must be struck by the extraordinary degree in which the fortunes of the republic were affected by the presence of foreigners, under different names, on her soil."
22
"We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey."
22
"The Germanic invasions destroyed neither the Mediterranean unity of the ancient world, nor what may be regarded as the truly essential features of the Roman culture as it still existed in the 5th century, at a time when there was no longer an Emperor in the West."
22
"The act of writing itself is much like the construction of a mirror made of words. Looking at certain illuminated corners of or cracks within the mirror, the author can see fragments of an objective reality that comprise the physical universe, social communities, political dynamics, and other facets of human existence. Looking in certain other corners of the same mirror, he or she may experience glimpses of a True Self sheltered deftly behind a mask of public proprieties."
22
"I will only mention that the independent power of words to affect the writing of history is a thing to be watched out for. They have an almost frightening autonomous power to produce in the mind of the reader an image or idea that was not in the mind of the writer. Obviously they operate this way in all forms of writing, but history is particularly sensitive because one has a duty to be accurate, and careless use of words can leave a false impression one had not intended."
22
"One English nobleman and statesman read and reread a particular work of literature because it was "the only book which allowed him to forget politics."
22
"Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do."
22
"The most celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the world begins, as it ends, with a Code."
22
"It is no longer an unwritten law of American capitalism that industry will attempt to maintain wages at a level that allows a single wage to support a family."
21
"If she does not respect you, she will replace you."
21
"We must steel ourselves against utopias and be content with a slightly better state."
21
"All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre."
21
"Everything interested him and everything excited him."
21
"Everything must be recaptured and relocated in the general framework of history, so that despite the difficulties, the fundamental paradoxes and contradictions, we may respect the unity of history which is also the unity of life."
21
"Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable for the catastrophes rearranging their lives."
21
"Women who seek advice from single women about getting a man is like asking a homeless man how to be rich."
21
"The love of humanity does not prevent us from being good journalists."
21
"Poetry looking in the mirror sees art, and art looking in a mirror sings poetry."
21
"A good woman keeps her mind right and her body tight."
21
"Each one of us is serious individually, but together we become frivolous."
21
"The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward."
21
"The affair made men feel larger than life."
21
"There are not many things finer in our murderous species than this noble curiosity, this restless and reckless passion to understand."
21
"At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls."
21
"Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day."
21
"The author says one patrician English leader saw his relationship with the populace thusly: He wasn't responsible TO them. He was responsible FOR them. He was responsible for their care."
21
"A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else."
21
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