Quotes About Reflection

A man makes many a mistake in his life, some small and inconsequential, some that change the course of everything. The trick is leaving it behind you and going on anyway. Because if you become stuck in the past, in things that can't ever be changed, well then, you're done for.

now she couldn't quite remember the face of the boy whose

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.

Books can be the people we never get to meet, ancestors or far neighbors.

Sometimes I imagine a whole future made out of the moment after I've died and you are still sitting beside me.' 'You imagine I'll be there at your deathbed?' 'Yes.' 'And if I stayed away, would you live for ever?

For the first time, I had been struck by the excitement of the traveler who looks history in her subtle face.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called by myself; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.

My guess is that he remembers some of me, some of us together, and the rest rolled off him like topsoil in a flash flood.

It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves, perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us.

If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.

For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth—really seen it—you can't look away.

Not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it.

It was strange, I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.

The past is very useful, but only for what if can teach us about the present. The present is the rich thing. But I am very fond of the past.

I hadn't realized before seeing him how thoroughly alone I'd felt on that rain, headed toward the unknown, headed perhaps toward the larger loneliness of being unable to find my father or even toward the galactic loneliness of losing him forever.

The study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.

El pasado es muy útil, pero sólo cuando puede enseñarnos algo acerca del presente. El presente es lo que cuenta. Pero me gusta mucho el pasado.

Old women who live long enough mainly count the bodies, whether we want to or not.

Ich verstehe mit achtzig was ich mit siebzig noch nicht verstehen konnte, naemlich dass man am Ende so gut wie allen vergibt, nur sich selbst nicht.

I wondered again if I might not actually be dead-if this was some terrible version of death, which I had momentarily mistaken for a continuation of life.

Then he said a strange thing, but to himself. `They lived, didn't they?' And I said yes, that when one reads old letters one understands that people in the past really did live, and it is very touching.

But when you accept an intruder for too long, you sometimes invite him back later as a guest.

I had been struck by the excitement of the traveler who looks history in her subtle face.

Ao sairmos para o anoitecer dourado das ruas bizantinas, refleti como era estranho que, mesmo sob as circunstâncias mais extraordinárias, durante episódios mais perturbadores da vida, nos lugares mais distantes de casa e de tudo que nos é familiar, possam existir esses momentos de incontestável alegria.