Historical Quotes - Page 30

• America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

  John le Carre

  War, Pigs, America

  "British Novelist John le Carré on the Iraq War, Corporate Power, the Exploitation of Africa and His New Novel, “Our Kind of Traitor”". "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. November 25, 2010.

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• [The historical] development in the international system may almost be defined as the process by which we pass from stable war to stable peace.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  War, Development, May

  "International Systems: Peace, Conflict Resolution, and Politics" (1975) by Kenneth Boulding (p. 375), as quoted in "Non-offensive defence for the twenty-first century" by Bjørn Møller, Håkan Wiberg, (p. 36), 1994.

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• Whether considered as a doctrine, or as an historical fact, or as a movemement, socialism, if it really remains socialism, cannotbe brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic church.... Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.

  Pope Pius XI

  Christian, Religious, Expression

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• Fear has a far greater grasp on human action than the impressive weight of historical evidence.

  Jeremy Siegel

  Investing, Weight, Action

  Jeremy J. Siegel (1998). “Stocks for the Long Run: The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns and Long-term Investment Strategies”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure.

  Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

  Country, Jesus, Men

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• For nearly two centuries, scholars and politicians have debated the future of capitalism. Its critics, most prominent among them Karl Marx, have seen capitalism as intrinsically unstable, full of contradictions that will lead eventually to its collapse. Its supporters see it as the best way to allocate resources and rewards. Some even hint that the democratic capitalistic society is not just a phase in the historical evolution of economic systems but its ultimate end.

  Raghuram Rajan

  Two, Hints, Phases

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• The two basic maxims of the so-called historical criticism are the postulate of the common and the axiom of the ordinary. Postulate of the common: everything really great, good, and beautiful, is improbable, since it is extraordinary and therefore at least suspect. Axiom of the ordinary: our conditions and environment must have existed everywhere, for they are really so natural.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Beautiful, Two, History

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• When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but in what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity, anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion.

  Louis Sullivan

  Fashion, Civilization, Style

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• There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.

  Emile Durkheim

  Character, Names, Doe

  Emile Durkheim (2014). “The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method”, p.160, Simon and Schuster

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• The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background . This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Attitude, Law, Doe

  Paul Feyerabend (1993). “Against Method”, p.51, Verso

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• An inert historical fact is any fact about a perfectly ordinary arrangement of matter in the world at some point in the past that is no longer discernible, a fact that has left no footprints at all in the world today.

  Daniel Dennett

  Past, Ordinary, World

  Daniel C. Dennett (2014). “Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking”, p.378, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Historical explanation is not identical with moral judgment.

  Moses Finley

  Moral, Judgment, Explanation

  "Democracy Ancient And Modern". Book by Moses Finley (Second Edition). Chapter 3, Democracy, Consensus and National Interest, p. 96, 1985.

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• Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Leadership, Children, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.505, Library of America

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• Have been reading "Genesis" several Sundays, not as a Christian reads for "spiritual consolation," "instruction," etc., not as aninfidel reads to carp and quarrel and criticize, but as one who wishes to be informed and furnished in the earliest and most wonderful of all literary productions. The literature of the Bible should be studied as one studies Shakespeare, for illustration and language, for its true pictures of man and woman nature, for its early historical record.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Bible, Christian, Spiritual

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• If you write a post and put it on a blog, that's a historical document. If you change your template, then that entry looks completely different. It's the same words, but not the same meaning. This all depends on what historical questions that people will be asking and we can't know what they will want.

  Joshua Greenberg

  Writing, People, History

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• It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions, 
  not repeated assessment of their validity.

  Edward de Bono

  Assessment, Assumption, Continuity

  Edward De Bono (1970). “Lateral Thinking: creativity step by step COTF MGT”

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• The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events.

  Frank Herbert

  Writing, Secret, Events

  Frank Herbert (1987). “Chapterhouse: Dune”, p.70, Penguin

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• And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us. That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth.

  Robert Penn Warren

  Love, Life, Believe

  Robert Penn Warren (2006). “All the King's Men”, p.342, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The most important misunderstanding seems to me to lie in a confusion between the human necessities which I consider part of human nature, and the human necessities as they appear as drives, needs, passions, etc., in any given historical period.

  Erich Fromm

  Lying, Passion, Confusion

  "Human Nature and Social Theory". Letter by Erich Fromm to Vladimir Dobrenkov, March 10, 1969.

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• Accepting the view that man was prior in the creation, some Scriptural writers say that as the woman was of the man, therefore, her position should be one of subjection. Grant it, then as the historical fact is reversed in our day, and the man is now of the woman, shall his place be one of subjection?

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Men, Views, Facts

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2012). “The Woman's Bible”, p.32, tredition

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• The analogy between the mind and a computer fails for many reasons. The brain is constructed by principles that assure diversity and degeneracy. Unlike a computer, it has no replicative memory. It is historical and value driven. It forms categories by internal criteria and by constraints acting at many scales, not by means of a syntactically constructed program. The world with which the brain interacts is not unequivocally made up of classical categories.

  Gerald Edelman

  Memories, Mean, Diversity

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• You can never really understand an individual unless you also understand the society,historical time period in which they live,personal troubles, and social issues

  C. Wright Mills

  Issues, Trouble, Individual

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• Reeducation needs careful tending, like an English lawn. Even one moment of negligence, and the weeds crop up again ~ those indestructible weeds of historical truth.

  Sefton Delmer

  Weed, Needs, Moments

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• Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Age, Aristocracy

  "'Michael: ein Deutsches Schicksal in Tagebuchblättern' ('Michael: a German fate in diary notes')". Book by Joseph Goebbels, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf., Munich, 7th edition, 1935.

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• The great thing about dealing with people about whom we have historical resources, is that if the writing needs work, there's everywhere to go to enrich it.

  Colin Firth

  Writing, People, Needs

  "Colin Firth and Tom Hooper interview: The King's Speech, Rocky IV and more". Interview with Michael Leader, www.denofgeek.com. Jan 6, 2011.

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