Quotes About History

the Episcopal Church of Scotland prayed, until as late as 1788, for the Stuarts.

Queen Mary, too, remained faithful to the pre-First World War opulence approved of by her husband. Whatever else might change, one could always be sure of Queen Mary's toques, ankle-length skirts, lace parasols and long, pointed shoes.

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination.

There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.

Theodor Fontane

We are one people—our enemies have made us one whether we will or not, as has repeatedly happened in history. Affliction binds us together, and thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State, and, indeed, a model State.

Hace algunos años, de pronto me encontré en las barriadas argelinas de París tomando fotografías para un reportaje que estaba preparando. Poco faltó para que me lincharan. Tiempo después entendí que en Occidente nos vemos unos a otros como a países que hubiéramos conquistado. Hacemos lo que nos da la gana con el rostro y el cuerpo de las personas que tenemos alrededor. Colonizamos sus destinos. Les robamos sus sufrimientos y nos aprovechamos de su historia.

The writer of history is perhaps closer to the artist than the scholar.

But such calm considerations do not mould history; it is not reason it is passion alone, that builds for the future.

In the mighty vortex of the world's history, which inexorably crushes all peoples that are not as hard and as flexible as steel, such a nation could not permanently maintain itself.

She (History) too is a Bible, and if she cannot any more than the Bible hinder the fool from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting her, she too will be able to bear with, and to requite, them both.

There are no set forms of high treason in history; whoever provokes one power in the state to conflict with another is certainly a revolutionist, but he may be at the same time a discerning and praiseworthy statesman.

There are recurring cycles, ups and downs, but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.

Philosophy that satisfies its own intention, and does not childishly skip behind its own history and the real one, has its lifeblood in the resistance against the common practices of today and what they serve, against the justification of what happens to be the case.

The expression if history in things is no other than that of past torment.

The forms of art reflect the history of man more truthfully than do documents themselves.

Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology.

The recent past always presents itself as if destroyed by catastrophes. The expression of history in things is no other than that of past torment.

No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton bomb. It ends in the total menace which organized mankind poses to organized men, in the epitome of discontinuity.

To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.

Aufgearbeitet wäre die Vergangenheit erst dann, wenn die Ursachen des Vergangenen beseitigt wären. Nur weil die Ursachen fortbestehen, ward sein Bann bis heute nicht gebrochen.

All post-Auschwitz culture, including its urgently needed critique, is garbage.

Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you read, you are limiting yourself. You need to get a good overall sense of English literary history, so you can write out of that knowledge.