Historical Malady Quotes

The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense or historical culture. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

An inseparable complement to the exoticism in his stories is the erudition, the bits of specialized knowledge, usually literary, but also philological, historical, philosophical, or theological. This knowledge, which borders on but never oversteps the bounds of pedantry, is quite freely flaunted. But the point is not to show off Borges's wide acquaintance with different cultures. Rather, it is a key element in his creative strategy, the aim of which was to imbue his stories with a certain colorfulness, to endow them with an atmosphere all their own. In other words Borges's learning by his use of exotic settings and characters fulfills an exclusively literary function, which, in twisting the erudition around and making it sometimes decorative, sometimes symbolic, subordinates it to the task at hand. In this way Borges's theology, philosophy, linguistics and so forth, lose their original character, take on the quality of fiction, and, becoming part and parcel of a literary fantasy, are turned into literature. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa

And that historical moment when the young Aphrodite held Poseidon`s magnificent phallus in her small hand & squeezed it was the greatest event of the universe since the Big Bang. It was the moment when Eros, separated from Himeros & Chaos in the Big Bang, were reunited, to become one again. And all who were there saw Aphrodite`s girdle changed its colour from a passion red to orange, & then to gold, the colour of Love. ~ Nicholas Chong

I have Tom Ford, Gucci, Saint Laurent, McQueen, and odd pieces that I've just acquired because I happened to have come across them and felt they have some historical resonance. ~ Hamish Bowles

Warning: Contains a Norman warrior with a thirst for justice, a Welsh rebel princess with second sight and a steady bow hand, magical prophecies, and a plot of royal proportions. ~ Sandra Jones

What seems strained - a mere triumph of perverse ingenuity - to one age, seems plain and obvious to another, so that our ancestors would often wonder how we could possibly miss what we wonder how they could have been silly-clever enough to find. And between different ages there is not impartial judge on earth, for no one stands outside the historical process; and of course on one is so completely enslaved to it as those who take our own age to be, not one more period, but a final and permanent platform from which we can see all other ages objectively. ~ C.S. Lewis

Turn around and I'll help you with your mask."
He secured the ribbons, and when Annella spun around to face him, he brought her gloved hand to his lips. "You look beautiful. And you do not look like a twelve-year old girl. Make sure you stay close because you're too young to have a suitor, and I don't want to have to dissuade any men from pursuing you. ~ Victoria Roberts

Language is the archives of history. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

On the Republican side, the emotional bonds of family launched a major social organization led by nietos, the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. Late in 2000 Emilio Silva and Santiago Macías began a personal search for the unmarked graves of their Republican ancestors.

[...] Descendants of executed Republicans told a journalist that "without the body, the pain never ceases." "Never," she reported, "have they spoken of vengeance, of revenge, or of anything that resembles that. In an exhumation, they never raise their eyes from the ground. They are not thinking of reopening wounds, but of closing, for once, their own." This journalist, Natalia Junquera, also quoted a distinguished professor of psychiatry who said, "The hatred dies, it is extinguished, but the necessity of putting a name to the dead, of honoring them, no. There always comes a moment in which one has to put an end to this interminable trauma." [63] ~ Paul D. Escott

Git'er Done
They beat their swords upon their shields
To no beast or man would they yield ~ Muse

He might kiss like a damn sex god and rev her engine like no other, but he clearly wasn't for her. ~ Carrie Ann Ryan

A crown Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns, Bring dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights To him who wears the regal diadem ~ John Milton

There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, , etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience. ~ Karl Marx

It's a misery peculiar to would-be writers. Your theme is good, as are your sentences. Your characters are so ruddy with life they practically need birth certificates. The plot you've mapped out for them is grand, simple and gripping. You've done your research, gathering the facts; historical, social, climatic culinary, that will give your story its feel of authenticity. The dialogue zips along, crackling with tension. The descriptions burst with color, contrast and telling detail.
Really, your story can only be great. But it all adds up to nothing.
In spite the obvious, shining promise of it, there comes a moment when you realize that the whisper that has been pestering you all along from the back of your mind is speaking the flat, awful truth: IT WON'T WORK.
An element is missing, that spark that brings to life in a real story, regardless of whether the history or the food is right.
Your story is emotionally dead, that's the crux of it.
The discovery is something soul-destroying, I tell you. It leaves you with an aching hunger. ~ Yann Martel

In the first few pages, Kundera discusses several abstract historical figures: Robespierre, Nietzsche, Hitler. For Eunice's sake, I wanted him to get to the plot, to introduce actual "living" characters - I recalled this was a love story - and to leave the world of ideas behind. Here we were, two people lying in bed, Eunice's worried head propped on my collarbone, and I wanted us to feel something in common. I wanted this complex language, this surge of intellect, to be processed into love. Isn't that how they used to do it a century ago, people reading poetry to one another? ~ Gary Shteyngart

It is only proper to realize that language is largely a historical accident. ~ John Von Neumann

If anyone ever said biopic I would say, "It's not a biopic." We're fighting uphill against the weight of history. I was like, why don't we just call it historical fiction? ~ Don Cheadle

The 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 Bell

I often tell people who want to write historical fiction: don't read all that much about the period you're writing about; read things from the period that you're writing about. There's a tendency to stoke up on a lot of biography and a lot of history, and not to actually get back to the original sources. ~ Thomas Mallon

The beauty of nature can only have its value and meaning if it nurtures and inspires the dwellers to live and create history, arts, culture, and language so that its spirit can be told from one generation to the next. The nature is the medium from which the dwellers build their historical lives (structure), and the interconnecting story between nature and people is the final historical form, that is, as a complete historical narrative between the dwelling and the dwellers within a particular time and space in the history of our planet. (Danny Castillones Sillada, Tomorrow's conservationists what we can learn from Danjugan Island) ~ Danny Castillones Sillada

We live in the present but we relate to our origins; we have an indisputable identity but we valorize it through the identity of our ancestors. That all this belongs to the realm of the historical and political imaginary does not mean that it is without significance: quite the contrary. In strict reality we are separated from the distant past, but by its imaginary actualization the past becomes a great force in the present. ~ Lucian Boia

From a historical perspective, the spiritual journey is always tragic, for it is a lonely path fit for individuals rather than for entire societies. Human cooperation requires firm answers rather than just questions, and those who foam against stultified religious structures end up forging new structures in their place. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

That is why they have poets - to classify all the degrees of love. It is for scientists to classify the maladies arising from the want of it. ~ Sarah Ruhl

If you can't see the good man he is, you need to unscrew them eyeballs of yours and try on a different pair. ~ Karen Witemeyer

I'm not only my father's daughter, but also a daughter of the nation he founded. And protecting both is what I've always done. ~ Laura Kamoie

Who were the men who did this?" Guido demanded suddenly.
Tonio was putting on his cloak. He looked up as if already in deep thought.
"Fools," he answered, "at the command of a coward. ~ Anne Rice

He kept pushing her, expecting for her to break. Fearing it. But he was the one who splintered apart. He was the one who broke. ~ Amber Lin

To those of you who are enslaved by your past, may my story set you free. For youth is innocent and its beauty is to always be cherished. ~ Nancy B. Brewer

The failure of memory, then is as much sociological as it is historical. ~ David Montejano

While all societies make their own imaginaries (institutions, laws, traditions, beliefs and behaviors), autonomous societies are those that their members are aware of this fact, and explicitly self-institute (αυτο-νομούνται). In contrast, the members of heteronomous societies attribute their imaginaries to some extra-social authority (i.e. God, ancestors, historical necessity) ~ Cornelius Castoriadis

If all, or almost all, the plays that are popular now, imaginative works as well as historical ones, are known to be nonsense and without rhyme or reason, and despite this the mob hears them with pleasure and thinks of them and approves of them as good, when they are very far from being so, and the authors who compose them and the actors who perform them say they must be like this because that is just how the mob wants them, and no other way; the plays that have a design and follow the story as art demands appeal to a handful of discerning persons who understand them, while everyone else is incapable of comprehending their artistry; and since, as far as the authors and actors are concerned, it is better to earn a living with the crowd than a reputation with the elite, this is what would happen to my book after I had singed my eyebrows trying to keep the precepts I have mentioned and had become the tailor who wasn't paid. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

You are an exceedingly beautiful mystery, one that intrigues me and one that I plan to solve. ~ Tamara Hughes

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates. ~ Gore Vidal

Ridley nodded. 'She told me I couldn't ever tell General Harding or anybody else. Told me I wouldn't be safe.'
'Safe?' Uncle Bob stopped rocking and took the pipe from between his teeth. 'She started in talkin' 'bout you bein' safe, sir?'
Ridley nodded again, and that's when Uncle Bob grinned.
'Well, shoot ... you ain't lost her yet, sir. Not altogether, anyhow. Any female goes to talkin' 'bout you bein' safe ... hmmph. There still be somethin' left in her heart for ya. ~ Tamera Alexander

i really like reading books ~ Dale Carnegie

To reduce poetry to its reflections of historical events and movements would be like reducing the poet's words to their logical or grammatical connotations. ~ Octavio Paz

To those who don't know the historical truth, I would like to say today, Poland was not an aggressor but a victim during the Second World War. ~ Ewa Kopacz

He loves the most beautiful woman in the world. And like Sir Lancelot, he shall love her exceedingly well. ~ Orna Ross

How may times can you lose the one you love? ~ Lauren James

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 Quigley

The clouds of night opened like ink blossoming in water. ~ Christopher Fowler

Messages continued to arrive from the Earl of Warwick, urging Londoners to hold firm for King Harry. Marguerite d'Anjou and her son were expected to land at any time, while from St Albans, Edward sent word that Harry of Lancaster was to be considered a prisoner of state. At that, John Stockton, the Mayor of London, contracted a diplomatic virus and took to his bed. ~ Sharon Kay Penman

The Earl of Blackstone didn't seem particularly mysterious to Emily. In fact, as he stood there silently - except for that sneering laugh he'd tried to cover up - she could think of several other adjectives to add to the list next time Sarah was searching for one: rude, self-important, boorish. And, if one could judge by the slightly slack-jawed way he stared at her, perhaps even "simple. ~ Jenny Holiday

There is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure, some of study,
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,
Some of disease, and some insanity,
And some of wither'd or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number'd in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes and bearing many names. ~ George Gordon Byron

To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek