Quotes About Centuries

The gate was made out of blocks of stone bigger across than I am tall. Something else supposedly built by the old gods, it was topped by a solid stone lintel with two carved lions that were supposed to roar if an enemy of the king passed beneath them. At least they were said to be lions. The stone had been weathered by the centuries, and only indistinct monster figures remained, facing each other over a short pillar. They remained silent as we passed under.

How painful and absurd, this fantasy that your own labors might in turn be redeemed by strangers centuries and perhaps continents away who would need to hear what you had to whisper, this delusion that you were doing anything other than babbling because you like the sounds it makes, like a child blowing bubbles into milk.

Social cohesion, during the six and a half centuries from Alexander to Constantine, was secured, not by philosophy and not by ancient loyalties, but by force, first that of armies and then that of civil administration. Roman armies, Roman roads, Roman law, and Roman officials first created and then preserved a powerful centralized State. Nothing was attributable to Roman philosophy, since there was none.

There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances. This interaction throughout the centuries will be the topic of the following pages.

The barbarian invasion put an end, for six centuries, to the civilization of western Europe. It lingered in Ireland until the Danes destroyed it in the ninth century;

No one can understand the Stoics and Epicureans without some knowledge of the Hellenistic age, or the scholastics without a modicum of understanding of the growth of the Church from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries.

But in fact, while some aspects of history can be made more or less scientific, and while it is important to do this wherever it is possible, the material is too complex to be reduced to scientific laws at present, and probably for centuries to come.

One hundred and fifty years of science have proved more explosive than five thousand years of prescientific culture. It would be absurd to suppose that the explosive power of science is exhausted, or has even reached its maximum. It is far more likely that science will continue for centuries to come to produce more and more rapid changes.

while some aspects of history can be made more or less scientific, and while it is important to do this wherever it is possible, the material is too complex to be reduced to scientific laws at present, and probably for centuries to come.

The old primitive passions, which civilization has denied, surge up all the stronger for repression. In a moment imagination and instinct travel back through the centuries, and the wild man of the woods emerges from the mental prison in which he has been confined. This is the deeper part of the psychology of the war fever.

Like the other great revolutions, an environmental revolution will require sacrifices and lead to enormous gains. It, too, will change the face of the land and human institutions, hierarchies, self-definitions, cultures. It will take centuries. If it happens. There is no guarantee, of course.

If we may not remain silent about evil in the Church, then neither should we keep silent about the great shining path of goodness and purity which the Christian faith has traced out over the course of the centuries.

For many centuries, suicides were treated like criminals by the society. That is part of the terrible legacy that has come down into society's method of handling suicide recovery. Now we have to fight off the demons that have been hanging around suicide for centuries.

Ya lo ven, hay gente que no asume la historia, que el paso de los siglos y sus aconteceres no tienen importancia para ellos.

For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains.

I've seen that, over the centuries, India has still got its passion and its soul. Wherever you go, people have such inner strength and beauty.

Angels die? It's a frightening-miracle because here they are. The Upper God has let them drop like centuries into space. And I recognize them!

Muddy Hole was not connected to St. John's at all except by a tenuous trail which, it is believed, was made some centuries ago by a very old caribou who was not only blind but also afflicted with the staggers.

L'établissement de la christologie a demandé quatre siècles. Elle a amené une fermentation inouï dans les esprits, troublés les conscience, ulcérés les moeurs.

L'apogée, la splendeur de l'Islam se situent entre VIIIème et XIIème siècles. Mais la perte très dangereuse de vitesse n'a guère commencé pour lui qu'avec le XVIIIème siècle, c'est-à-dire, à l'échelle lente des civilisations.

When a man sleeps, he is steeped and lost in a limp toneless happiness: awake he is restless, tortured by his body and the illusion of existence. Why have men spent the centuries seeking to overcome the awakened body? Put it to sleep, that is a better way. Let it serve only to turn the sleeping soul over, to change the blood-stream and thus make possible a deeper and more refined sleep.

Aquello que he considerado como apego a la propiedad, no es más que el instinto carnal del campesino, hijo de campesinos, nacido de aquellos que, desde hace siglos, interrogan con angustia el horizonte.

It was a joke, but centuries of distrust and fear lay behind it. Soon somebody would say something that was sharper and harder, but it would still be a joke. And then there would be a remark like a punch in the gut, but made as a joke. And then they would detain her if she tried to leave, and nobody would stop them because it was all only a joke...

In all of these centuries there has not been the slightest shadow of change in the nature of God or in His attitude toward sin. The Bible teaches from the beginning to the end that adultery and fornication are sin, and the attitude of churchmen does not alter its character.