A. L. Rowse Quotes

History is a great deal closer to poetry than is generally realised: in truth, I think, it is in essence the same.

I would never wound a cat's feelings, no matter how downright aggressive I might be to humans.

If there is any honor in all the world that I should like, it would be to be an honorary Jewish citizen.

A little group of thatched cottages in the middle of the village had an orchard attached; and I remember well the peculiar purity of the blue sky seen through the white clusters of apple blossom in spring. I remember being moonstruck looking at it one morning early on my way to school. It meant something for me; what, I couldn't say. It gave me such an unease at heart, some reaching out towards perfection such as impels men into religion, some sense of the transcendence of things, of the fragility of our hold on life.

I do not wish to die- There is such contingent beauty in life: The open window on summer mornings Looking out on gardens and green things growing, The shadowy cups of roses flowering to themselves- Images of time and eternity- Silence in the garden and felt along the walls.

This filthy twentieth century. I hate its guts.

Bound as our lives are to the tyranny of time, it is through what we know of history that we are delivered from our bonds and escape - into time.

Walking is the favorite sport of the good and wise.

One might regard architecture as history arrested in stone.