J. B. Bury Quotes
Writing the history of the present is always a very different thing from writing the history of the distant past. The history of the distant past depends entirely on literary and documentary sources; the history of the present always involves unwritten material as well as documents. But the difference was much greater in the days of Thucydides than it is now.
Quotes to Explore
-
The whole New Deal was in a sense just a series of public options, some more optional than others, that offered government as an alternative to the often-flawed private market.
-
Goodbyes are sad, no matter what the promise of tomorrow is.
-
It's going to be a big topic of discussion.
-
Rude interviewers are ten a penny, and politicians have long since learned how to cope.
-
God is equipping you, protecting you, & readying you to fight for the mission He has given you to change the world.
-
...as for me, I am intact; and I don't care.
-
I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to.
-
I wrote a story for my kids. It's fiction. It's not systematic theology. It's not a new book of the Bible. It's flawed, I wrote it. All of that goes into the mix, but I love the controversy. It elevates the conversation.
-
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, And say there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say there is no vice but beggary
-
So how come it looks so beautiful? How come the moon falls from the sky?
-
Everyone flatters himself and carries a kingdom in his breast.
-
Busy is good, isn't it? Busy means we're hard at it, achieving our ends or "goals." Haven't had time to stop, or look around or think. That's considered the sign of a life well lived ... Suppose, though, you're not sure that what you're doing is at all worthwhile. Suppose you blundered into it over a spoonful of lime pickle. It's easy, it pays quite well. But really it's a distraction. It stops you thinking about what you ought to be doing.
-
The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.
-
A picture story is a sequence of images combined with text in such a way that pictures and words reinforce each other. They produce a planned, organized combination giving detailed account of an event, personality or aspect of life.
-
Success breeds confidence.
-
The Chinese have done some extraordinary things in terms of the investments they've made in alternative sources of energy.
-
In a certain sense all men are historians.
-
When historians get to write the truth about this completely unnecessary referendum Brexit they won't say it was a vote demanded by the British people to decide their national destiny. They will say it was the final battle in a decades-long Tory Civil War, at the heart of which was a fight to the death between two Old Etonians, David Cameron and Boris Johnson, for the hollow crown. A sort of Eton Wall Game. Where the poorest are put up against the wall and shot.
-
For historians, hindsight can be a treacherous ally. Enabling us to trace the hidden patterns of past events, it beguiles us with the mirage of inevitability, the assumption that different outcomes lay beyond the limits of the possible.
-
To ensure attaining an objective, one should have alternate objectives. An attack that converges on one point should threaten, and be able to diverge against another. Only by this flexibility of aim can strategy be attuned to the uncertainty of war.
-
Writing the history of the present is always a very different thing from writing the history of the distant past. The history of the distant past depends entirely on literary and documentary sources; the history of the present always involves unwritten material as well as documents. But the difference was much greater in the days of Thucydides than it is now.
