All Quotes By Tag: History

“It is important to know the stories and histories of things, even if all we know is that we don’t know.”

“Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.— Winston S. Churchill”

“It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that.”

“In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes.”

“[R]eligion was the race’s first (and worst) attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine. We did not know that we lived on a round planet, let alone that the said planet was in orbit in a minor and obscure solar system, which was also on the edge of an unimaginably vast cosmos that was exploding away from its original source of energy. We did not know that micro-organisms were so powerful and lived in our digestive systems in order to enable us to live, as well as mounting lethal attacks on us as parasites. We did not know of our close kinship with other animals. We believed that sprites, imps, demons, and djinns were hovering in the air about us. We imagined that thunder and lightning were portentous. It has taken us a long time to shrug off this heavy coat of ignorance and fear, and every time we do there are self-interested forces who want to compel us to put it back on again.”

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]”

“History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn’t have to be who we are.”

“The tea-master, Kobori-Enshiu, himself a daimyo, has left to us these memorable words: “Approach a great painting as thou wouldst approach a great prince.” In order to understand a masterpiece, you must lay yourself low before it and await with bated breath its least utterance. An eminent Sung critic once made a charming confession. Said he: “In my young days I praised the master whose pictures I liked, but as my judgement matured I praised myself for liking what the masters had chosen to have me like.”

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are. ”

“There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.”

“When most of the greatest individuals in history were misunderstood and you’ve spent so much of your own adult life misunderstood, you can’t help but believe that the majority of people know very little worth knowing.”

“I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?”Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.”

“The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men’s hands, since the publication of Newton’s ‘Principia’, is Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species.”

“Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?”“You whacked me on the head with a ball!”“You deserved it.”

“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”