Historical Contexts Quotes

It's very important to always put things in their historical contexts. It teaches important lessons about the country in question. ~ Warren Christopher

I was trained as a philosopher never to put philosophers and their ideas into historical contexts, since historical context has nothing to do with the validity of the philosopher's positions. I agree that assessing validity and contextualizing historically are two entirely distinct matters and not to be confused with one another. And yet that firm distinction doesn't lead me to endorse the usual way in which history of philosophy is presented. ... The philosophers talk across the centuries exclusively to one another, hermetically sealed from any influences derived from non-philosophical discourse. The subject is far more interesting than that.

... When you ask why did some particular question occur to a scientist or philosopher for the first time, or why did this particular approach seem natural, then your questions concern the context of discovery. When you ask whether the argument the philosopher puts forth to answer that question is sound, or whether the evidence justifies the scientific theory proposed, then you've entered the context of justification. Considerations of history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology are relevant to the context of discovery, but not to justification. You have to keep them straight.... ...(T)he assessment of those intuitions in terms of the argument's soundness isn't accomplished by work done in the context of discovery. And conversely, one doesn't diminish a philosopher's achievement, and doesn't undermine its soundness, by s ~ Rebecca Goldstein

Ours is a historical faith, and to uproot the Bible from its historical contexts is self-contradictory. ~ Peter Enns

I suppose it's fair to say that I am interested in the invention of self or selves. We're all born into certain circumstances with particular physical traits, unique developmental experiences, geographical and historical contexts. ~ Sarah Jones

What does freedom mean if we accept the fundamental premise that humans are social beings, raised in certain social and historical contexts and belonging to particular communities that shape their desires and understandings of the world? ~ Lila Abu-Lughod

Before I disappear behind the door, I stop and turn around to look at him. ~ Nancy B. Brewer

You can trust in nothing. Nothing is always there, holding all. ~ Orna Ross

To speak of "the rise of Protestantism" is to offer a controlling narrative that links these potentially disparate events as part of a greater, more significant movement. So persuasive was this emerging narrative that many of the reforming groups scattered across Europe realigned their sense of identity and purpose to conform to it. As these movements began to locate themselves on a historical and conceptual map, each came increasingly to identify itself in terms of what was perceived as a greater overarching movement. A ~ Alister E. McGrath

WARNING
Any Relationship to any historical fact WHATSOEVER is entirely coincidental. You have been WARNED ~ Cressida Cowell

Much history as well as popular imagination not only erases their contingency but implicitly attributes to historical actors intentions and consciousness they could not have possibly had...Once a significant historical event is codified, it travels a sort of condensation symbol and, unless we are very careful, takes on a false logic and order that does a grave injustice to how it was experienced at the time. ~ James C. Scott

The 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 Nelson

Truly evil persons do not recognize their own malevolence. They perceive themselves as generous, good-hearted, friendly sorts, who sometimes have to resort to unpleasant tactics for the general betterment of society. Even the historical monsters seem to have had no second thoughts about the damage they were causing. It was that way with Hitler and Oliver Moresby, just as it was with the Greer Avenue Strangler. ~ Jack McDevitt

'Memory.' 'Race.' 'Murder.' That's what they say about me. I am an elegiac poet. I have some historical questions, and I'm grappling with ways to make sense of history; why it still haunts us in our most intimate relationships with each other, but also in our political decisions. ~ Natasha Trethewey

She promised you'd get to shore in one piece.' Cheap said, 'and I won't make a liar out of her. But if you know what's good for you, you'll forget about that girl. Ask anyone on the coast. Or the Lord God himself. They'll tell you. Lucas Cheap sailed with the Brethren. He makes good ever on his threats. ~ Donna Thorland

I like writing historical fiction. ~ Philippa Gregory

I looked up its history, and, surprisingly, it has quite a history. You know how in Europe they make you study a lot of stuff about the old alchemists and all that kind of stuff, to give you an historical grounding.'

'Yes?'

Kemp laughed. 'You haven't got a witch around your place by any chance?'

'Eh!' The exclamation almost burned Marson's lips. He fought hard to hide the tremendousness of that shock.

Kemp laughed again. 'According to 'Die Geschichte der Zauberinnen' by the Austrian, Karl Gloeck, Hydrodendon Barelia is the modem name for the sinister witch's weed of antiquity. I'm not talking about the special witches of our Christian lore, with their childish attributes, but the old tribe of devil's creatures that came out of prehistory, regular full-blooded sea witches. It seems when each successive body gets old, they choose a young woman's body, attune themselves to it by living with the victim, and take possession any time after midnight of the first full moon period following the 21st of June. Witch's weed is supposed to make the entry easier. Gloeck says... why, what's the matter, sir?'

His impulse, his wild and terrible impulse, was to babble the whole story to Kemp. With a gigantic effort, he stopped himself; for Kemp, though he might talk easily of witches, was a scientist to the depths of his soul.

("The Witch") ~ A.E. Van Vogt

Shakespeare set a lot of his dramas in a historical perspective or war perspective, or he would study what was going on at that time. ~ Marcia Gay Harden

The people themselves are not a homogeneous cultural collectivity but present numerous and variously combined cultural stratifications which, in their pure form, cannot always be identified within specific historical popular collectivities. ~ Antonio Gramsci

The most important misunderstanding seems to me to lie in a confusion between the human necessities which I consider part of human nature, and the human necessities as they appear as
drives, needs, passions, etc., in any given historical period. ~ Erich Fromm

With a historical novel you know that liberties are being taken. Since Walter Scott, we know that poetic license, dramatic license, that events been conflated and that liberties have been taken, characters ditto, dates rearranged. But people don't seem to understand that movies are fictions, they are dramatizations, at least historical movies, and we should accord the moviemakers some of the same understanding and latitude. When you go to a movie you know it's a dramatization and not history. ~ Nicholas Meyer

What we call happiness is sometimes the accordance between our life and circumstances,our biography and history ,our personal aspirations and historical currents .If i look at things that way,I can say : I was born too early to be happy.But birth is one of the many things we do not get to choose.It's part of our destiny.
If I were offered life again,I would refuse it. But ,If i had to be born again. I would choose my life ~ Alija Izetbegovic

What are you cooking this night, wife?" One of the crepes picked that moment to dislodge itself from the ceiling. It landed at her feet with a plop as if on cue. "Crepes." She kept a straight face and tried to look like this was the normal way to make crepes. ~ Shelly Thacker

We had been through so much together, mrs. Kennedy and me. More than anyone can imagine. More than anyone can ever know. ~ Clint Hill

It is an assumption brought forth countless of times in various contexts that the world would be better, drifting slower towards the ruin, if women had the "power"; if political leadership, decision making, government and economic life was in the hands of women. I think reality, the observation material, supports the assumption. ~ Pentti Linkola

If you look at the historical record, you will find that language has always been in decline. Which means, really, and it never has. ~ Robert Lane Greene

Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

When the inner light of the soul shone through like that, the shape of nose or ears became unimportant. She was shining, and it looked almost like a miracle. ~ Lina J. Potter

By nature, it's impossible to describe enlightenment! How do you plan on sharing your enlightenment? Hahaha, that's impossible. Wake up! That'll be the end of the world if you ever succeed! ~ Osamu Tezuka

Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eigh­teenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men. ~ Diana Gabaldon

The historian's task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well organized society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves. ~ Tony Judt

The best way to take our minds off our own troubles is to help someone else with theirs. ~ Karen Witemeyer

I may be dead inside, but I'm more than alive enough for you." He gripped her chin and covered her mouth with his. ~ Erica Ridley

We can imagine a society in which no one could survive as a social being because it does not correspond to biologically determined perceptions and human social needs. For historical reasons, existing societies might have such properties, leading to various forms of pathology. ~ Noam Chomsky

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. ~ Laurie R. King

The unfortunate and inescapable historical truth is that those in government - from both parties and with a few courageous exceptions - do not feel constrained by the Constitution. They think they can do whatever they want. ~ Andrew Napolitano

Entertainment history is now the main source of supposedly historical knowledge for more and more people, but 'histo-tainment' is superficial and lacks all context. ~ Antony Beevor

For both art and the historical sciences are modes of experiencing in which our own understanding of existence comes directly into play. ~ Hans-Georg Gadamer

Jodi Byrd writes: "The story of the new world is horror, the story of America a crime." It is necessary, she argues, to start with the origin of the United States as a settler-state and its explicit intention to occupy the continent. These origins contain the historical seeds of genocide. Any true history of the United States must focus on what has happened to (and with) Indigenous peoples - and what still happens. ~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I'll show you a crook. ~ Harry Truman

Human nature, though being the product of historical evolution, has certain inherent mechanisms and laws, to discover which is the task of psychology. ~ Erich Fromm

I find historical figures in general very tricky because you feel at times that you're serving two masters. Not only the arc and wonderful writing that comes with the show, but also the history of a person's life. ~ Vincent Piazza