Historical Curiosities Quotes

These hapless livers were probably not always mere myths, and these legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush or the rose were no idle poetic emblem of youth and beauty fleeting as the Summer flowers. ~ James George Frazer

Here's a news flash: scientists can be wrong. That's no big deal (unless the scientist is you), since research is self-correcting. Consequently, most errors by scientists become historical curiosities, with little long-term importance. ~ Seth Shostak

Juanita Rose Violini's Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible and the Ignored is delightfully odd, wonderfully weird, and anything but normal. Filled with historical curiosities and esoteric advice, the book explains legends, the paranormal, and the people who experience the fringe. Have fun, but don't get too close this book may be contagious. ~ Jeff Belanger

If we could view Muhammad as we do any other important historical figure we would surely consider him to be one of the greatest geniuses the world has known. ~ Karen Armstrong

The empire long united must divide, long divided must unite; this is how it has always been. ~ Luo Guanzhong

The historical resonances are sharp. [Louis] Brandeis is nominated on Jan. 28, 1916. Confirmed on June 1. Waits 125 days between nomination and confirmation, which remains an unbroken record, although Merrick Garland will surpass it in July, if my math is right. Anti-Semitism was definitely not the central reason for the opposition, which tended to focus more on his anti-corporate radicalism, but it was a theme. ~ Jeffrey Rosen

Two murders. One bridge. And the truth as elusive as the fog. ~ Abigail Wilson

We think and believe that we are exceptional. We have created so many stories around how exceptional humans are. We were created by the hands of the divine, and the universe is our gift. We believe that it was all created to serve us, but the reality of the matter is, we are not exceptional except for our ability to kill beauty and destroy. We are not as fast as the gazelle or a cheetah; we can't fly like birds; we don't have fur to protect us in the cold; we don't have natural strength to lift heavy objects like a gorilla or an elephant. We created fables to explain our presence, even scientific ones that we can't prove. It is all unproven theories, on all sides. We are not exceptional; we are only exceptional when we work together and in sync with nature like every other creature. ~ Hani Selim

Your Grace, Are you trying to get me into your bed?"
"Yes. Nightly. I said as much, not a minute ago. Are you listening at all? ~ Tessa Dare

The great majority of interpretations of Apocalypse assume that the End is pretty near. Consequently the historical allegory is always having to be revised; time discredits it. And this is important. Apocalypse can be disconfirmed without being discredited. This is part of its extraordinary resilience. It can also absorb changing interests, rival apocalypses, such as the Sibylline writings. It is patient of change and of historiographical sophistications. It allows itself to be diffused, blended with other varieties of fiction--tragedy, for example, myths of Empire and of Decadence--and yet it can survive in very naïve forms. Probably the most sophisticated of us is capable at times of naïve reactions to the End. ~ Frank Kermode

My father says you're to steal me away. Is that true?" Her lovely blue eyes flashed with mischief.
"Your father said that?" Rubbing the back of his neck, Declan met her eyes. "And what did you say about it?"
She dropped her bold gaze. "I told him that nothing so exciting ever happens around here. ~ Laura Hunsaker

Some things can be recovered. Some things can be restored. But some lost things, we seek forever. ~ Margaret George

I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end. ~ Jami Attenberg

Very strange bridges are used to make the passage from one state of things to another; we may lose sight of them in our surveys of general history, but their discovery is the glory of historical research. History is not the study of origins; rather it is the analysis of all the mediations by which the past was turned into our present. ~ Herbert Butterfield

I've always had strong ties with Delhi, and I do stay in touch with my friends and periodically visit the capital. I started my schooling at St. Columbus High School before I went to Mayo College. Delhi, for me, is a historical city with all its beautiful monuments. ~ Ajay Mehta

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
--Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 ~ Wendy Goerl

Pornographers are the enemies of women only because our contemporary ideology of pornography does not encompass the possibility of change, as if we were the slaves of history and not its makers ... Pornography is a satire on human pretensions. ~ Angela Carter

Suddenly all those individuals who yesterday felt that "we" meant only their families, their professions, or perhaps their communities, become men of the nation. Their emotions and thoughts, their egos, that "something" within them, all are transformed: they have become historical. ~ Oswald Spengler

Instruction in world history in the so-called high schools is even today in a very sorry condition. Few teachers understand that the study of history can never be to learn historical dates and events by heart and recite them by rote; that what matters is not whether the child knows exactly when this battle or that was fought, when a general was born, or even when a monarch (usually a very insignificant one) came into the crown of his forefathers. No, by the living God, this is very unimportant. To 'learn' history means to seek and find the forces which are the causes leading to those effects which we subsequently perceive as historical events. ~ Adolf Hitler

I hated historical novels with fluttering cloaks. ~ Jeanette Winterson

The historical figures who earned the honorific "So-and-So the Great" were not great artists, scholars, doctors, or inventors, people who enhanced human happiness or wisdom. They were dictators who conquered large swaths of territory and the people in them. If Hitler's luck had held out a bit longer, he probably would have gone down in history as Adolf the Great. ~ Steven Pinker

The pathbreaker who disdains the applause he may get from the crowd of his contemporaries does not depend on his own age's ideas. He is free to say with Schillers Marquis Posa: "This century is not ripe for my ideas; I live as a citizen of centuries to come." The genius' work too is embedded in the sequence of historical events, is conditioned by the achievements of preceding generations, and is merely a chapter in the evolution of ideas. But it adds something new and unheard of to the treasure of thoughts and may in this sense be called creative. The genuine history of mankind is the history of ideas. It is ideas that distinguish man from ali other beings. Ideas engender social institutions, political changes, technological methods of production, and ali that is called economic conditions. And in searching for their origin we inevitably come to a point at which ali that can be asserted is that a man had an idea. Whether the name of this man is known or not is of secondary importance.
This is the meaning that history attaches to the notion of individuality. Ideas are the ultimate given of historical inquiry. Ali that can be said about ideas is that they carne to pass. The historian may point out how a new idea fitted into the ideas developed by earlier generations and how it may be considered a continuation of these ideas and their logical sequei. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

One of the things I enjoy most about writing historical romance is researching inspiring backgrounds and settings. ~ Nicola Cornick

If the world is an objective reality that exists independently of us, then humans themselves, even in their own eyes, are nothing more than objects, and their life stories merely a series of disconnected historical accidents, which they may wonder at, but which they themselves have nothing to do with. ~ Imre Kertesz

The giant beech next door intends to shiver off every hair of its pelt. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

As discussed earlier, when it comes to music, most of us tend to have confidence in our taste even though we may totally lack knowledge regarding historical development or compositional theory. I frequently hear, "I don't know anything about art" but hardly ever, "I don't know anything about music". ~ Michael Findlay

Damn, you're good,' he said and rolled onto his back. The man wasn't much for flowery speech, Alesandra thought with a smile. It didn't matter. She was arrogantly proud of herself because she'd pleased him. Perhaps she should give him a little praise too. She rolled onto her side to face him, put her hand on his chest directly over his pounded heart, and whispered. 'You're good, too. 'Tis the truth, you're the best I've ever had.'
He opened his eyes to look at her. 'I'm the only one you've ever had, remember?' His voice was gruff with affection.
'I remember,' she said.
'No other man is ever going to touch you, Alesandra. You're mine. ~ Julie Garwood

We want to overcome our historical problems with Chile. The sea has divided us and the sea must bring us back together again. Chile has agreed, for the first time, to talk about sea access for Bolivia. ~ Evo Morales

I didn't have much notice, either, and you don't see me stomping about or trying to encourage people to faint or cry." Oh, she likely shouldn't have said that, either.
"Ye've a slightly better hold of yer temper than Coll does."
"A dragon would seem to have an easier temper than your brother," she blurted, then put a hand over her mouth. What was wrong with her tonight?
He snorted. "I cannae argue with that. ~ Suzanne Enoch

You cruel, hard-hearted gods!" I flung the goblet in his direction. Hermes barely had time to dart out of its way before it hit the wall and shattered to small pieces. "You're all the same! Hsst! Jealous! Vindictive! That's what you are! You allow yourselves to take pleasure with any mortal you wish. Let a goddess do the same. Let a goddess choose a mortal for her lover, and you set off in a fury of revenge against her as if her actions are an affront to you. And all the while, you male gods allow yourselves all kinds of liberties you deny to us females. ~ Tamara Agha-Jaffar

The effect on human consciousness of the experience of the Presence of God is subjectively transformative and identical throughout human history. It leaves a timeless mark that is verifiable as a calibration of a recorded level of conciousness. ~ David Hawkins

All profound changes in consciousness, by their very nature, bring with them characteristic amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring narratives… The photograph… is only the most peremptory of a huge modern accumulation of documentary evidence… which simultaneously records a certain apparent continuity and emphasizes its loss from memory. Out of this estrangement comes a conception of personhood, identity… which, because it cannot be "remembered", must be narrated. ~ Benedict Anderson

At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic "men of destiny". ~ Antonio Gramsci

Would you like more sauce, sweeting?"
His fingers strangled the stem of his wineglass. She could practically hear the grapes calling for help. She hoped that was a good sign. "If you don't cease that nonsense," he said, "you will regret it."
"Is that so, my heart?"
"What about 'precious'?" she suggested.
"No."
"'Angel'?"
"God, no."
"'Muffin'?"
In response to that, he hit the shuttlecock so hard, it sailed all the way to the back wall and thwacked one of his ancestors right in the powdered wig. She cheered. "Well done, my precious angel muffin."
"This stops," he said. "Now. ~ Tessa Dare

Why would God create people with all these desires and curiosities and then punish them for trying to satisfy them? ~ Belle Blackburn

Through historical accident, we've ended up with a global network that pretty much allows anybody to communicate with anyone else at any time. ~ Jonathan Zittrain

I never sat down and said, 'I'm going to write historical fiction with strong romantic elements.' It was just the way the stories went. ~ Lauren Willig

Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity. ~ Marilynne Robinson

From the front row of the balcony, I look out over the Uptown Cinema. The red velvet seats are emptying, the credits scrolling up the screen. Ginger Rogers married a Nazi, but Cary Grant got her out of it. Their ship is sailing to America; sun burns away the fog and the wind blows free. Now they are gone and I am coming back to reality, breathing a harsher air. It is how I always feel when a movie ends. ~ Kermit Roosevelt III

He who travels west travels not only with the sun but with history. ~ Hal Borland

The Rothschilds have conquered the world more thoroughly, more cunningly, and much more lastingly than all the Caesars before ... ~ Frederic Morton

Gideon could not imagine any other young unmarried woman of his acquaintance passing up the opportunity to snare, if not himself, then the Carradice fortune. In any case, the number of women who'd rejected him in any way was gratifyingly small. Yet Miss Prudence Merridew had most unmistakably rejected him. Several times. Wielding that damned lethal reticule like a little Amazon, to emphasize her point. ~ Anne Gracie