Quotes from Norman Davies

The idea that historians write the definitive version of something that will last for all time is less current than it used to be.

Law and Justice are the most vindictive gang in Europe.

Under Lenin, hardly less than under Stalin, historians harbored critical opinions at their peril. The writing, let alone the publication, of political diaries was virtually impossible.

The 'politics of memory' policy appears to work largely by insinuation.

It is indeed the duty of historians to stress the contrast between the standards of the past and the standards of the present. Some fulfil that duty on purpose, others by accident.

One has to put aside the popular notion that language and culture are endlessly passed on from generation to generation, rather as if 'Scottishness' or 'Englishness' were essential constituents of some national genetic code. If this were so, it would never be possible to forge new nations – like the United States of America or Australia – from diverse ethnic elements.

Culture is something that must grow. You cannot build a tree; you can only plant it, and care for it, and wait for it to mature . . .

the Entente Powers, far from aiding Poland, regarded her activities with irritation. Poland won her independence for twenty years by her own efforts under the leadership of Pi?sudski.

Reconstructing the past is rather like translating poetry. It can be done, but never exactly.

The big question about the hunter-gatherers, therefore, does not seem to be 'How did they progress towards the higher level of an agricultural and politicised society?' but 'What persuaded them to abandon the secure, well-provided and psychologically liberating advantages of their primordial lifestyle?'.1

WczeÅ›niej czy pó?niej dekonstrukcjonistów zdekonstruujÄ… ich wÅ'asne metody. "Prze?yliÅ›my Ã…Å¡mier? Boga i Ã…Å¡mier? CzÅ'owieka. Z pewnoÅ›ciÄ… prze?yjemy tak?e Ã…Å¡mier? Historii... i Ã…Å¡mier? Postmodernizmu.

An ambassador', quipped Sir Henry Wootton, 'is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

The title 'Lord of All-Rus' did not possess much basis either in history or in current reality. It came into the same category as that whereby the kings of England laid claim to France. In the 1490s, two-and-a-half centuries after all traces of a united Kyivan Rus' had been destroyed, it had the same degree of credibility that the king of France might have enjoyed if, in his struggle with the German Empire, he had proclaimed himself 'Lord of all the Franks'.

So long as men slaughter animals,' the master said, 'they won't stop killing each other.'1 [KONOPI?TE]

All the nations that ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand. The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human material is atomized and recycled. But if we know where to look, there is always a remnant, a remainder, an irreducible residue.

Marcus Aurelius had a marvellous sense of who, and where, he was: As the Emperor Antoninus, Rome is my city and my country; but as a man, I am a citizen of the world . . . Asia and Europe are mere corners of the globe, the Great Ocean a mere drop of water, Mount Athos is a grain of sand in the universe. The present instant of time is only a point compared to eternity. All things here are diminutive, subject to change and decay; yet all things proceed from . . . the one Intelligent Cause.

O dearest Warsaw of my youth, Which encompassed the whole of my world! If only for a moment and in the dark I wish to catch a glimpse Of the ashes and the flowers Of that good past.10

The immediate future may be determined by a race between the United Kingdom and the EU over which beats the other to a major crisis.

By 1939 the Gulag was the largest employer in Europe.

We have survived the "Death of God" and the "Death of Man". We will surely survive "the Death of History" . . . and the death of post-modernism.

If enough people in society could be convinced that history was governed by scientific laws: that Soviet-style Socialism was the inevitable product of historical progress: and that the Soviet Union embodied all the finest socialist ideals of peace, equality, and justice, then rational people would be incapable of defying the rule of the Soviet government and its chosen allies.

The Muslim Era of Hegira, which marks the flight of the Prophet from Mecca, corresponds to Friday, 16 July AD 622.

NOMISMA, MEANING 'COIN', was used by both Greeks and Romans. Our own word 'money' derives, via the French monnaie, from the Latin moneta, meaning the mint, where coins are struck. (In early Rome the mint was situated on the Capitoline Hill in the temple of Juno Moneta.)

the Welsh name for 'England', Lloegr, meant 'the Lost Land', I fell for the fancy, imagining what a huge sense of loss and forgetting the name expresses. A learned colleague has since told me that my imagination had outrun the etymology. Yet as someone brought up in English surroundings, I never cease to be amazed that everywhere which we now call 'England' was once not English at all.