Fernand Braudel Quotes

History may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all. ~ Fernand Braudel

In this sense, Byzantine culture embodies the French historian Fernand Braudel's notion of the longue durée, the long term: that which survives the vicissitudes of changing governments, newfangled fashions or technological improvements, an ongoing inheritance that can both imprison and inspire. ~ Judith Herrin

Social science virtually abhors the event. Not without reason; the short-term is the most capricious and deceptive form of time. ~ Fernand Braudel

There were two, three or four French Revolutions. Like a multi-stage rocket today, the Revolution involved several successive explosions and propellant thrusts. ~ Fernand Braudel

For a century, the Arabs tribes gave Islam the first of these victories. Then the rough mountain peoples of North Africa, the Berbers, helped it to conquer Spain and organize Fatimid Egypt. ~ Fernand Braudel

When the [colonial] contact was violent, in fact, failure was more frequent than success. 'Colonialism' may have triumphed in the past: but today it is an obvious fiasco. And colonialism, typically, is the submergence of one civilisation by another. The conqured always submit to the stronger; but their submission is merely provisional when civilisations clash.
Long periods of enforced coexistence may include concessions or agreements and important, often fruitful, cultural exchange. But the process always has its limits. ~ Fernand Braudel

The key problem is to find out why that sector of society of the past, which I would not hesitate to call capitalist, should have lived as if in a bell jar, cut off from the rest; why was it not able to expand and conquer the whole of society? ... [Why was it that] a significant rate of capital formation was possible only in certain sectors and not in the whole market economy of the time? ~ Fernand Braudel

Modern history, both early and late, was made by Europeans, who "built a world around Europe", as historians "know", according to Braudel. That is indeed the "knowledge" of the European historians who themselves "invented" history and then put it to good use. There is not even an inkling of suspicion that it may have been the other way around, that maybe it was the world that made Europe. ~ Andre Gunder Frank

For the historian everything begins and ends with time, a mathematical, godlike
time, a notion easily mocked, time external to men, 'exogenous,' as economists
would say, pushing men, forcing them, and painting their own individual times
the same color: it is, indeed, the imperious time of the world. ~ Fernand Braudel

Civilization is in fact the longest story of all. Civilization can persist through a series of economies. ~ Fernand Braudel

There are always some areas world history does not reach, zones of silence and undisturbed ignorance. ~ Fernand Braudel

Events are the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not into oblivion. Every event, however brief, has to be sure a contribution to make, lights up some dark corner or even some wide vista of history. Nor is it only political history which benefits most, for every historical landscape - political, economic, social, even geographical - is illumined by the intermittent flare of the event. ~ Fernand Braudel

Everything must be recaptured and relocated in the general framework of history, so that despite the difficulties, the fundamental paradoxes and contradictions, we may respect the unity of history which is also the unity of life. ~ Fernand Braudel

A Bearnaise sauce is simply an egg yolk, a shallot, a little tarragon vinegar, and butter, but it takes years of practice for the result to be perfect. ~ Fernand Point

Perfection is lots of little things done well. ~ Fernand Point

I'm not hard to please, I'm content with the very best. ~ Fernand Point

If the divine creator has taken pains to give us delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is prepare them well and serve them with ceremony. ~ Fernand Point

Fernand," cried he, "of my hundred names I need only tell you one, to overwhelm you! But you guess it now do you not? - or, rather, you remember it? For notwithstanding all my sorrows and my tortures, I show you today a face which the happiness of revenge makes young again.. ~ Alexandre Dumas

The Beautiful is everywhere; perhaps more in the arrangement of your saucepans on the white walls of your kitchen than in your eighteenth-century living room or in the official museums. ~ Fernand Leger

If he is thin, I will probably dine poorly. If he is both thin and sad, the only hope is in flight. ~ Fernand Point

Courage lies in being oneself, in showing complete independence, in loving what one loves, in discovering the deep roots of one's feelings. ~ Fernand Pouillon

As far as cuisine is concerned one must read everything, see everything, hear everything, try everything, observe everything, in order to retain in the end, just a little bit. ~ Fernand Point

Even a part of an object has value. A whole new realism resides in the way one envisages an object or one of its parts. ~ Fernand Leger

A good apprentice cook must be as polite with the dishwasher as with the chef. ~ Fernand Point

I like to start off my day with a glass of champagne ... I like to wind it up with a glass of champagne, too. To be frank, I also like a glass or two in between. It may not be the universal medicine for every disease, as my friends in Reims and Epernay so often tell me, but it does you less harm than any other liquid. ~ Fernand Point

Man needs colour to live; it's just as necessary an element as fire and water. ~ Fernand Leger

A woman not yet seen, but whose perfume accumulates on the horizon like a storm cloud. ~ Fernand Dumont

The realistic value of a work is completely independent of its properties in terms of content. ~ Fernand Leger

Before judging a thin man, one must get some information. Perhaps he was once fat. ~ Fernand Point

Colour is a human need like water and fire. It is a raw material indispensable to life ~ Fernand Leger

Above all, it is a matter of loving art, not understanding it. ~ Fernand Leger

I believe Fernand Point is one of the last true gourmands of the 20th century. His ruminations are extraordinary and thought-provoking. He has been an inspiration for legions of chefs. ~ Thomas Keller

Enormous enlargements of an object or a fragment give it a personality it never had before, and in this way, it can become a vehicle of entirely new lyric and plastic power. ~ Fernand Leger

I make out a schoolbus ... glowing orange, green, magenta, lavender, chlorine blue, every fluorescent pastel imaginable in thousands of designs, both large and small, like a cross between Fernand Liger and Dr. Strange, roaring together and vibrating off each other as if somebody had given Hieronymous Bosch fifty buckets of day-glo paint and a 1939 International Harvester schoolbus and told him to go to it. ~ Tom Wolfe

Place a lump of fresh butter in a pan or egg dish and let it melt - that is, just enough for it to spread, and never, of course, to crackle or sit; open a very fresh egg onto a small plate or saucer and slide it carefully into the pan; cook it on heat so low that the white barely turns creamy, and the yolk becomes hot but remains liquid; in a separate saucepan, melt another lump of fresh butter; remove the egg onto a lightly heated serving plate; salt it and pepper it, then very gently pour this fresh, warm butter over it ~ Fernand Point

Success is the sum of a lot of small things done correctly. ~ Fernand Point

The craving for colour is a natural necessity just as for water and fire. Colour is a raw material indispensable to life. At every era of his existence and his history, the human being has associated colour with his joys, his actions and his pleasures. ~ Fernand Leger

Every morning the cuisinier must start again at zero, with nothing on the stove. That is what real cuisine is all about. ~ Fernand Point

He is the cause of all this misery - I am quite sure of it," whispered Caderousse, who had never taken his eyes of Fernand, to Danglars.
"I don't think so," answered the other; he's too stupid to imagine such a scheme. I only hope the mischief will fall upon the head of whoever wrought it."
"You don't mention those who aided and abetted the dead," said Caderousse.
"Surely," answered Danglars, "one cannot be held responsible for every chance arrow shot into the air."
"You can, indeed, when the arrow lights point downward on somebody's head. ~ Alexandre Dumas

I organize the opposition between colors, lines and curves. I set curves against straight lines, patches of color against plastic forms, pure colors against subtly nuanced shades of gray. ~ Fernand Leger

When a small night-lamp alone illuminated our love-making, it became a very small, circular room which silently passed through nights humming with stars. ~ Fernand Dumont

This truth must be recognized as a dogma and assume the validity of an axiom in the general understanding of painting. ~ Fernand Leger