Eric Hobsbawm Quotes
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
Quotes to Explore
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How hard have those intolerant of John Adams's perspective worked to strip from young people any hope of knowing the concepts and truths that help deal with life?
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Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.
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My friends in the TV news business are in a state of despair about Donald Trump, even as their bosses in the boardroom are giddy over what he's doing for their once sagging ratings.
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To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
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I like boxes because of the secrets they hide.
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We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.
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The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe. Discard the make-believe and take the truth.
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We had times in '66 and '67 when we would pick up a platoon of privates out of the receiving barracks the week before we even graduated the platoon that we were on!
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I can't think of anything I hate more than a former punk - they are the most self-righteous people in the world.
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I'm a dork!
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The teaching thing, the one where I have to impart my knowledge, is probably what comes the least naturally to me because I'm an absorber of things.
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The Queen and Electric Light Orchestra harmonies are so distinct and fit in our songs so well sometimes, but we don't know how to do them properly.
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Every season, for me, it's like starting from scratch again.
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There should be no censorship of mail.
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I feel like I work on scripts for comedy as well as dramatic stuff the same.
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If one is going to change the definition of marriage to be, quote, 'same sex,' then there is absolutely no valid argument constitutionally or rhetorically you can make against multiple people getting married. These are radical social changes.
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It's really hard to get a coffee with someone. I have to call my agent, my agent calls their agent, their agent calls their manager, the manager calls back, the actor sends someone to the manager... then you get, 'Yeah, yeah, I'd love to have dinner at six,' and all I wanted was coffee! It can take, like, six days to get coffee.
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I do secret stand-up shows around New York. I announce and tweet this to nobody - I get onstage and I do a quick five minutes.
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The Paris peace talks kept a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back because if something was said going in or coming out, I had the rent for the month.
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Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.
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It's like a battle, trying to find the right words to say at the right time.
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My one big rule for the over-40s is don't try to dress like an 18-year-old. It's possible to be 'on-trend' when you're older - you just have to look for the right stuff. You don't have to spend a fortune, either.
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My life collapsed. People ran from me because suddenly it was, "Oh my God! It's over for her now!"
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Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
