top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Historian
"Never lose sleep over someone who is not worth staying awake for."
15
"Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire, I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven's mouth."
15
"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."
15
"In spite of overwhelming evidence, it is most difficult for a citizen of western Europe to bring thoroughly home to himself the truth that the civilisation which surrounds him is a rare exception in the history of the world."
15
"The Englishman, as an American observed, felt himself the best-governed citizen in the world, even when in opposition he believed the incumbents were ruining the country."
15
"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."
14
"All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre."
14
"Everything interested him and everything excited him."
14
"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."
14
"The more you overthink the less you will understand."
14
"The first source of art, then, is akin to the display of colors and plumage on the male animal in mating time; it lies in the desire to adorn and beautify the body. And just as self-love and mate-love, overflowing, pour out their surplus of affection upon nature, so the impulse to beautify passes from the personal to the external world. The soul seeks to express its feeling in objective ways, through color and form; art really begins when men undertake tobeautify things."
14
"My mind may be sober, but my confidence is high!"
14
"A man is as old as his arteries and as young as his ideas."
14
"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."
14
"The most celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the world begins, as it ends, with a Code."
14
"Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time."
13
"The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large."
13
"We must steel ourselves against utopias and be content with a slightly better state."
13
"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."
13
"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."
13
"Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way."
13
"The limitation prompting folly " was an attitude of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable."
13
"He accomplished wonders of diplomacy on the principle, never give way, and never give offense."
13
"Death like style is the removal of rubbish."
13
"Let us retreat when we can, not when we must. Lord Chatham."
13
"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."
13
"Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day."
13
"Keep striving, for God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers."
13
"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion."
13
"History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances."
13
"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."
13
"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."
13
"Exhortations to obstruct the operations of Government in detail, should; Exhortations to resist all."
13
"The spirit of revolution, the spirit of insurrection, is a spirit radically opposed to liberty."
13
"Now, my father Matthias was not only eminent on account of is nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of his righteousness, and was in great reputation in Jerusalem, the greatest city we have."
13
"There is within the human heart a quality of intelligence which has been known to surpass that attributed to the human mind."
12
"The birth of a true poet is neither an insignificant event nor an easy delivery. Complications generally begin long before the fated soul carries its dubious light into whatever womb has been kind enough to volunteer the intricate machinery of its blood and prayers and muscles for a gestation period much longer than nine months or even nine years."
12
bottom of page