history

Bird asked what a paleontologist was and Mom said that if he took a complete, illustrated guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shred it into a hundred pieces, cast them into the wind from the museum__ steps, let a few weeks pass, went back and scoured Fifth Avenue and Central Park for as many surviving scraps as he could find, then tried to reconstruct the history of painting, including schools, styles, genres, and names of painters from his scraps, that would be like a paleontologist.

I will only mention that the independent power of words to affect the writing of history is a thing to be watched out for. They have an almost frightening autonomous power to produce in the mind of the reader an image or idea that was not in the mind of the writer. Obviously they operate this way in all forms of writing, but history is particularly sensitive because one has a duty to be accurate, and careless use of words can leave a false impression one had not intended.

We are the middle children of history. Born too late to explore earth, born too early to explore space.

Studying history is for tourists - polite, tidy people with clean desks and clean consciences. Making history is for people willing to get their hands dirty, to make mistake and lie when necessary, so that someday historians can sit quietly at their desks and act shocked.

History is us squinting into the past, mistaking millions of tiny vibrations in all directions for unified, unidirectional movements by entire civilizations.

Believe it or don't believe it, Madame. But my feet are tired too. Bloody tired. Like a dead man's.

History Is The BACKBONEOf FutureLearn and Grow

The weight of history swings on choices. To understand why people make the choices they do is to understand the whole of history and most of the future.

If we could learn to look instead of gawking,We'd see the horror in the heart of farce,If only we could act instead of talking,We wouldn't always end up on our arse.This was the thing that nearly had us mastered;Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,The bitch that bore him is in heat again.

History, for better or worse, is 'us' on a grand scale _ full of secrets, beauty, fear, longing, and stifled love. Without history, our lives would not be complete, and we could not be, in the best sense, fully 'human.

DID YOU KNOW that the UNBELIEVING, the FEARFUL and LIARS are no better than the MURDERERS, the SORCERERS and the IDOLATERS? In fact, they will all go to hell. The Bible says, "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8). The Bible did not say those wearing jewelry and trouser will go to hell. Don't allow the religious and legalistic people to divert your heart from the real issues. Stop playing with sin. No sin is greater than another. All lead to hell fire.

If the food supply runs out, try trapping or hunting animals. For most people, this won't be easy. If you can't catch any animals, it's time to throw a Donner party.

I had often thought about people who lived through strange and compelling times _ World War II, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement. These were periods that shaped people in some indelible way. I wondered how this moment would define us. I had never before believed that there was anything special about the era I was growing up in.

Poppe, once a leading figure at a scientific research institute, found a job as a swimming pool attendant

The past was a minefield about which few maps seemed to agree. And why should that surprise me? It's a big place.p. 30

You are pitiful, isolated individuals! You are bankrupts. Your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on _ into the dustbin of history!

Was it possible to be homesick for a soul?

I'm working on this book on the trial of Socrates. It started out with the idea of the problem of freedom of thought...and expression...I started by spending a year on the English Seventeenth Century Revolutions, and I had a fascinating time. And then I felt I couldn't understand the English Seventeenth Century Revolutions without understanding the Reformation. When I got to the Reformation, I felt that I had to understand the premonitory movements that began in the Middle Ages. When I got there, I felt I had to understand the classical period." (quoted in Andrew Patner, I. F. Stone: A Portrait, p. 21)