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Western civilization presents one of the most difficult tasks for historical analysis, because it is not yet finished, because we are a part of it and lack perspective, and because it presents considerable variation from our pattern of historical change.
Carroll QuigleyLike sex, poverty and power, suicide may always be with us. But like them again, the actual form is takes is essentially time-specific and culture-bound, not only in the past but in the present too. The people who took their lives, the paths which led them to that end, and the experience of dying in this way were deeply influenced by specific historical circumstances. Only by making a greater effort at historical understanding can this most secret house of death be made to yield up more of its confidences.
David Cannadine'Believing' cannot tip the scales in making a historical judgement about whether something really happened. I can choose to believe that George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock, but my believing that he did it has nothing to do with whether or not he really did do it. So also with the story of Jesus walking on water: Believing that he did it has nothing to do with whether he really did do it. 'Belief' cannot be the basis for historical conclusions; it has no direct relevance.
Marcus BorgThe functional language is a radically anti-historical language: operational rationality has little room and little use for historical reason.
Herbert MarcuseThe story in that particular spot was an ancient history story, and we wanted to give it a historical feeling, which was why we used a historical calligraphy scroll come to life.
Jennifer Yuh NelsonCommunism is Utopia, that is nowhere. It is the avatar of all our religious eschatologies: the coming of the Messiah, the second coming of Christ, nirvana. It is not a historical prospect, but a current mythology. Socialism, by contrast, is a realizable historical system which may one day be instituted in the world.
Immanuel WallersteinThrough its imperialist system Britain brought about untold suffering of millions of people. And this is an historical fact. To be able to admit this would increase the respect, you know, which we have for British institutions.
Nelson MandelaIt's a historical fact that the Stasi did horrible things and that they monitored a lot of people in East Germany, but I find it very interesting to think about the importance of the Western secret services back then and still working today.
Christian SchwochowReligious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred transcendence.
Karen ArmstrongEverybody needs a fan, and the support and the encouragement. We're human beings; that is an essential part of the equation. When that fan is not there and when you're in a situation that triggers you on a historical level, you behave impulsively. You can destroy years worth of work professionally, personally, in a moment of being triggered by that.
Jillian MichaelsThere is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.
Emile DurkheimThe claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.
D.T. SuzukiIf all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources, epigraphy, or archaeology that would disprove this statement.
Paul L. MaierIn some places you can find an extreme blackness used as a descriptive. I also take into account historical realities that some of this range in color is the legacy of white supremacy.
Kerry James MarshallThis trial cannot be separated from the process of the historical struggle in Palestine that continues today between the Zionist Movement and the Palestinian people, a struggle that centers on Palestinian land, history, civilization, culture and identityAs for your judicial apparatus, which is where this court comes from: it is one of the instruments of the occupation whose function is to give the cover of legal legitimacy to the crimes of the occupation, in addition to consecrating its systems and allowing the imposition of these systems on our people through force.
Ahmad Sa'adatFiction has consisted either of placing imaginary characters in a true story, which is the Iliad, or of presenting the story of an individual as having a general historical value, which is the Odyssey.
Raymond QueneauWe, the Greens, should thank our former foreign minister Joschka Fischer for bringing something hideous and shameful to light - that Nazi ideas were fully adopted by white-collar workers in the Foreign Ministry. Joschka Fischer stood up to criticism that he would foul his own nest, and with his order to start the historical commission he made it clear that the ministry's pride in itself, as a haven of resistance to Hitler, was no longer acceptable.
Claudia RothIf a source gives us material that is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance that has not been published before and is comprised of official documents or recordings, then we will publish it.
Julian AssangeFor me archaeology is not a source of illustrations for written texts, but an independent source of historical information, with no less value and importance, sometimes more importance, that the written sources.
Michael RostovtzeffThe importance of the End of time is as ... a psychological event ... When you have seen the radiance of eternity through all the forms of time ... and it is the function of art to make that visible to you ... then you have really have ended life in the world as it is lived by those who only think only in the historical, concretizing terms. This is the function of mythology.
Joseph CampbellI have Tom Ford, Gucci, Saint Laurent, McQueen, and odd pieces that Ive just acquired because I happened to have come across them and felt they have some historical resonance.
Hamish BowlesTo me the Mahabharata is a profoundly religious book, largely allegorical, in a way meant to be a historical record.
Mahatma GandhiArt of course survives on the walls of private dwellings and corporate offices, but it 'dies' in the sense of losing its public, community-gathering, world-historical significance.
Julian YoungThe assassination at Sarajevo was certainly the crucial precedent of the European war that its conspirators had sought, but was not the historical cause ... The assassination acted as a lever, prying the various powers into predictable paths.
J. Bowyer BellThere are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.
Vladimir Nabokovwe have accumulated a wealth of historical experience which confirms our belief that the scales of American justice are out of balance.
Angela DavisBiblical archaeology was developed early in this century in an effort to substantiate the authenticity of the Biblical account. It's by now generally recognized in Biblical scholarship that it has done the opposite. The Bible is not a historical text, and has only vague resemblances to what took place, as far as can be reconstructed. For example, whether Israel ever existed is not clear; if so, it was probably a small kingdom somewhere in the hills, apparently virtually unknown to the Egyptians.
Noam ChomskyIn the course of writing one historical book or another, it has happened that I could hardly restrain myself from simply copying entire documents. Indeed, I sometimes sank down among the documents and said to myself, I can't improve on these.
Alfred DoblinThe Bible was written two thousand years ago. The world is a different place now. Stories that had meaning then are meaningless now. Beliefs that might have been valid then are invalid now. Those books should be looked at in the same way we look at anything of that age with interest with an acknowledgement of the historical importance but they should not be thought of as anything that has any value.
James FreyThere are a lot of parallels between the historical Henry VIII and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. There's an oscillation and extremity of emotion throughout his repertoire that lends itself beautifully to the nature of Henry VIII, definitely. He will push things to the limit, and yet remain in emotional control.
Natalie DormerThe tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
Peggy NoonanBecause of their historical theory of the "alienation of labor" (that the worker must become less and less in control of the work of his hands) the Marxist parties never fought for the man-worthy job itself.
Paul GoodmanMy friend Ronald Gottesman says...that the cause of all our trouble is the belief in an essential, pure identity: religious, ethnic, historical, ideological.
Chris AbaniPuerto Rico is an island separated by an ocean, a language, a culture. All of that put it in a position where it's like, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but what happened in Puerto Rico never happened at all. It's not like there was a decades-long conspiracy. It's just the aggregation of all these historical forces made it difficult for this information to exist in one place.
Nelson Antonio DenisConsensual paranoia - the pathology of the normal person who is a member of a war-justifying society - forms the template from which all the images of the enemy are created. By studying the logic of paranoia, we can see why certain archetypes of the enemy must necessarily recur, no matter what the historical circumstances.
Sam KeenI'm sorry to say it has some historical analogs. It's kind of reminiscent of what happened in Germany in the late Weimar years.
Noam ChomskyThe best way to look at countries on a map is like a chalk outline drawn by the police when someone dies what you are seeing with the borders are just outlines of historical crimes past warlords empires its nothing to be loyal to. Have loyalty to reason, to evidence, to ideals not to lines drawn up mostly by criminals.
Stefan MolyneuxIf psychedelics are, on any level, to be taken seriously as catalyzers or expanders of consciousness, then we need them, because it's an absence of consciousness that is making this historical transition so excruciating.
Terence McKennaAnti-Americanism is as old as the Republic--a historical constant, which is only remotely related to specific American behavior. So what is new? Andrei Markovits has delivered the best answer yet, ranging across an astounding wealth of material from politics and culture. Uncouth Nation is a rare academic treat. Rigorous and analytical, the book is also a pleasure to read as it penetrates a critical issue of our time.
Josef JoffeThe great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.
Dietrich BonhoefferThe Bible is not considered an accurate, absolute, authoritative, or authoritarian source but a book to be experienced and one experience can be as valid as any other can. Experience, dialogue, feelings, and conversations are equated with Scripture while certitude, authority, and doctrine are to be eschewed! No doctrines are to be absolute and truth or doctrine must be considered only with personal experiences, traditions, historical leaders, etc. The Bible is not an answer book.
Brian D. McLarenIf the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.
David HumeAll the many brands of suppression - racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, classism - are historical; they have not been always with us. It was not ever thus. And it's not going to be this way, come the revolution!
Clara FraserCritics often point to historical issues such as slavery, upon which many Christians did act inconsistently, in an effort to invalidate Christian participation in contemporary social issues.
H. Wayne HouseWhat I am asserting is that in this particular epoch a conjunction of historical circumstances has led to the rise of an elite of power; that the men of the circles composing this elite, severally and collectively, now make such key decisions as are made; and that, given the enlargement and the centralization of the means of power now available, the decisions that they make and fail to make carry more consequences for more people than has ever been the case in the world history of mankind
C. Wright MillsIf I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.
David Ben-Gurion