Quotes About History

Physicians recommended those suffering from hemorrhoids to stroke them with the amputated hand of a dead man—a strangely unpalatable image to ponder.

Over time, these writings of the early church fathers and the decrees of popes and church councils became accepted truth in the same way the Bible was.

In the 1590s, physicians examining the corpse of King Henri IV's twenty-six-year-old mistress agreed that she had, in fact, been killed by a "corrupt lemon."320

When all is said and done, and statesmen discuss the future of the world, the fact remains that people fight these wars.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

What has happened to us in this country? If we study our own history, we find that we have always been ready to receive the unfortunate from other countries, and though this may seem a generous gesture on our part, we have profited a thousand fold by what they have brought us.

Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, "It can't be done.

the thing we call French culture may be due to the fact that French children can play, surrounded by the things of the past, palaces of bygone kings, statues, remembrances of history.

A real picture of any human being is interesting in itself, and it is especially interesting when we can follow the play of other personalities upon that human being and perhaps get a picture of a group of people and of the influence on them of the period in which they lived.

Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, "It can't be done.

every choice has its history, so many moments of our existence are shoved into a corner, waiting for an outlet, and in the end the outlet arrives.

And they thought that what had happened before was past and, in order to live quietly, they placed a stone on top of it, and so, without knowing it, they continued it, they were immersed in the things of before, and we kept them inside us, too.

Everything that could happen between us had happened, the rest was only complications.

Com'era friabile il passato, franava di continuo, le veniva addosso.

Naples was the great European metropolis where faith in technology, in science, in economic development, in the kindness of nature, in history that leads of necessity to improvement, in democracy, was revealed, most clearly and far in advance, to be completely without foundation.

não há gestos, palavras, suspiros, que não contenham a soma de todos os crimes que os seres humanos cometeram e cometem.

le moindre choix a son histoire, et beaucoup d'événements de notre existence restent tapis dans un coin en attendant le moment de surgir, et ce moment finit par arriver.

See where that argument with the religion teacher led, every choice has its history, so many moments of our existence are shoved into a corner, waiting for an outlet, and in the end the outlet arrives. But I would have been exaggerating, in reality it was much simpler.

Que desperdício seria, pensei, estragar nossa história dando espaço excessivo aos maus sentimentos: os maus sentimentos são inevitáveis, mas o essencial é represá-los.

A language is a compendium of the history, geography, material and spiritual life, the vices and virtues, not only of those who speak it, but also of those who have spoken it through the centuries. The words, the grammar, the syntax are a chisel that shapes our thought.

Everything, in writing, has a long history behind it. Even my uprising, my spilling over the margins, my yearning is part of an eruption that came before me and goes beyond me. Thus when I talk about my "I" who writes, I should immediately add that I'm talking about my "I" who has read (even when it's a question of distracted reading, the trickiest kind of reading).

How foolish to think you can tell your children about yourself before they're at least fifty. To ask to be seen by them as a person and not as a function. To say : I am your history, you begin from me, listen to me, it could be useful to you.

De dónde llegan las fechas y a dónde van? Viajan un año entero y con la precisión de una saeta se clavan en el día señalado, nos muestran un pasado, presente en el espacio, nos deslumbran y se apagan. Se levantan puntuales de un tiempo invisible y en un instante recuperamos el fragmento de un gesto, la torre de una ciudad olvidada, las frases de los héroes disecadas en los libros o el asombro de la mañana del bautizo cuando nos dieron nombre.

It is difficult to inherit the histories of those who raise us when they choose to hide them.