Historical Quotes
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I'd like to do something impossible rather than just something historical.
Eric Holmes
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O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
William James
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No historical analogies are exactly precise.
Rick Perlstein
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We have Italian marble fireplaces, pocket doors and banisters that have been removed. I asked them to give me enough architectural information on the interior of the house to be able to submit paperwork to be a part of the National Historical Landmark nomination.
John Francis
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The U.S. military today garrisons the planet in a fashion without historical precedent. Successive administrations, regardless of party, justify and perpetuate this policy by insisting that positioning U.S. forces in distant lands fosters peace, stability, and security. In the present century, however, perpetuating this practice has visibly had the opposite effect. In the eyes of many of those called upon to "host" American bases, the permanent presence of such forces smacks of occupation. They resist. Why should U.S. policymakers expect otherwise?
Andrew Bacevich
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Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.
Ernest Renan
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The only conclusion you can draw from the real historical movement is that by and large, in day-to-day life, what Lenin called trade union consciousness dominates the working class. I would call it elementary class consciousness of the working class.
Ernest Mandel
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I came into history from a primary concern with mathematics and science. This has been a tremendous help to me as a person and as a historian, although it must be admitted it has served to make my historical interpretations less conventional than may be acceptable of many of my colleagues in the field.
Carroll Quigley
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Every time some new huckster of angst-ridden metaphor is appointed by Art Forum, the congregation genuflects, stroking the catalog like a handful of Rosary beads, and starts spreading that old gospel according to Hyperbole. No questions asked... And thus the bill of goods is sold, all along the line. An art historical snake, swallowing its own tale.
Abe Ajay
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It is important to realize that whatever we do or design has iconographic references, it comes from somewhere; any form is always metaphorical, never totally metaphysical; it is never a 'destiny' but always a fact with some kind of historical reference. To put an object on a base means to monumentalize it, to make everyone aware it exists.
Ettore Sottsass
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Like sex, poverty and power, suicide may always be with us. But like them again, the actual form is takes is essentially time-specific and culture-bound, not only in the past but in the present too. The people who took their lives, the paths which led them to that end, and the experience of dying in this way were deeply influenced by specific historical circumstances. Only by making a greater effort at historical understanding can this most secret house of death be made to yield up more of its confidences.
David Cannadine
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Einstein and the Quantum is delightful to read, with numerous historical details that were new to me and cham1ing vignettes of Einstein and his colleagues. By avoiding mathematics, Stone makes his book accessible to general readers, but even physicists who are well versed in Einstein and his physics are likely to find new insights into the most remarkable mind of the modern era.
Daniel Kleppner
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The historical order is very interesting, but accidental and capricious; if we would to understand the growth of knowledge, we cannot be satisfied with accidents, we must explain how knowledge was gradually built up.
George Sarton
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The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.
Geraldine Brooks
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Modern society has not rid itself of religion, as it fondly believes; it has merely replaced the historical religions by a host of idolatrous cults struggling for possession of the soul of man.
Will Herberg
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What are your historical Facts still more your biographical Wilt thou know a man by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts.
Thomas Carlyle
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Psychology must not only strive to become a useful basis for the other mental sciences, but it must also turn again and again to the historical sciences, in order to obtain an understanding for the more highly developed metal processes.
Wilhelm Wundt
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What blinds us, or makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness that our beliefs have grown obsolete and should be put aside.... This is I think much of the problem of the modern dilemma: Direct experience has been discounted, and in its place all kinds of belief systems have been erected.... If you believe something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite; which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of committing yourself to this belief.
Terence McKenna
