Historical Moment Quotes

The crisis is a period in which a diseased social, economic, and political body or system cannot live on as before and is obliged, on pain of death, to undergo transformations that will give it a new lease on life. Therefore, this period of crisis is a historical moment of danger and suspense during which the crucial decisions and transformations are made, which will determine the future development of the system if any and its new social, economic, and political basis. ~ Andre Gunder Frank

Photography can still be used to champion activism and change. I believe this, even while standing in the cool winds of postmodernism ... Postmodernism looked radical, but it wasn't. As a movement it was profoundly liberal and became a victim of itself. Precisely at this historical moment, when multicultural democracy is the order of the day, photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change. I for one will continue to work toward this end. ~ Carrie Mae Weems

we have in this brief historical moment, this moment in between two modes of being, a very rare opportunity. For those of us who have lived both with and without the vast, crowded connectivity the Internet provides, these are the few days when we can still notice the difference between Before and After. ~ Michael Harris

Gribshin considered what he had just seen. He knew it was important. It belonged to the future, he was sure, but was it his future. He too was pleased by the sound the lock made as it closed: it was something predictive. In the echoing tintinnabulation of the lock's components colliding hard against each other were conjured the sonances of rifle shots and beyond them smoky images of milling crowds. The sounds and images vanished without revealing to Gribshin exactly what they promised. ~ Ken Kalfus

The difference between the Parthenon and the World Trade Center, between a French wine glass and a German beer mug, between Bach and John Philip Sousa, between Sophocles and Shakespeare, between a bicycle and a horse, though explicable by historical moment, necessity, and destiny, is before all a difference of imagination. ~ Guy Davenport

Jack Paar took a vacation at the end of May 1958 and Johnny Carson filled in, hosting The Tonight Show for the very first time. It was a historical moment that at the time was dismissed. 'With Carson navigating, it was wholesome, intelligent and mostly dull,' wrote Variety. 'The experience of his helmship will never go down as memorable either for a Carson appearance or for an edition of the show. ~ Kliph Nesteroff

The problem, of course, is that at any given historical moment, prevailing views about the right changes to make in how we care for our bodies can be bullying and shaming. There is a lot of widespread guilt about diet, exercise, sex, and treatments. How insistent all the advice is! Have sex a lot, don't have any sex; eat heartily, eat with restraint; hold your body in stillness, move it and have it moved; bind your ample body tightly, wear soft clothes but have no fat. Not only are the various instructions different; they are directly at odds with each other. Yet, despite our historical track record on these matters, we are today generally confident that we know best- that science and other experts have now got it right, after a long history of nonsense. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

Have you decided yet what historical moment you would have most like to have witnessed with your own eyes and ears? ~ Padgett Powell

I think you just have to turn it around and say we are at this absolute historical moment. No generation has ever been as powerful as us. We have the future of our species in our hands. We could be the generation that people look back on and say, 'They bloody did it!', not 'They didn't bother.' ~ Franny Armstrong

The timed email bombs of the 2016 presidential campaign were also a powerful form of disinformation. Words written in one situation make sense only in that context. The very act of removing them from their historical moment and dropping them in another is an act of falsification. What is worse, when media followed the email bombs as if they were news, they betrayed their own mission. ~ Timothy Snyder

To live among objects of the kind Bishop collected is to be reminded of all those people you are not, all the specificities of time and place, so vividly embodied in these artifacts, that don't apply to you. It confronts you with the dark irony of being one specific person in time, randomly assigned to your one life and one historical moment. ~ Lloyd Schwartz

All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation ... for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place. ~ Edward W. Said

A retrospective of how scientific perceptions of the Earth have changed over the past three centuries reveals a strong correlation between Western political and social views and contemporary scientific "truths." This connection should make us suspect that our understanding of the planet at any historical moment is at best incomplete and at worst hopelessly wrapped up with our own self-image. ~ Marcia Bjornerud

What's so amazing about this historical moment is that it is bringing class to the fore and we have to think about the nature of work and hierarchy. ~ Bell Hooks

However, while we should certainly celebrate the demise of overt official racism, we must also critically examine where we are at this historical moment, recognize the many challenges ahead and reaffirm our commitment to making Brown v. Board a reality. ~ Ed Markey

♥ To my daughter Taliah, I just wanted to tell you how proud we are all of you and all the other children of the PS22 Chorus of Staten Island. With your great determination and hard work you all made this day happen, singing at the presidential inauguration. I want you to remember this day for the rest of your life, because it is such an historical day for you, for your school and for our nation. As you sit above the great man below you taking the oath of presidency...remember as a child he had dreams too and the great odds he had to overcome to achieve them . May your dreams take you far in your life and may it all start on this day, at this period of time, at this historical moment in your lives...may you all cherish this moment in your hearts
forever! ~ Timothy Pina

When one approaches an exotic spirituality, one understands principally what one is predestined to understand by one's own vocation, by one's own cultural orientation and that of the historical moment to which one belongs. ~ Mircea Eliade

When we dare to speak in a liberatory voice, we threaten even those who may initially claim to want our words. In the act of overcoming our fear of speech, of being seen as threatening, in the process of learning to speak as subjects, we participate in the global struggle to end domination. When we end our silence, when we speak in a liberated voice, our words connect us with anyone, anywhere who lives in silence. Feminist focus on women finding a voice, on the silence of black women, of women of color, has led to increased interest in our words. This is an important historical moment. We are both speaking of our own volition, out of our commitment to justice, to revolutionary struggle to end domination, and simultaneously called to speak, "invited" to share our words. It is important that we speak. What we speak about is more important. It is our responsibility collectively and individually to distinguish between mere speaking that is about self-aggrandizement, exploitation of the exotic "other," and that coming to voice which is a gesture of resistance, an affirmation of struggle. ~ Bell Hooks

But we need more than a broader understanding of what is a good society or a moral and political critique of the existing market fundamentalism engulfing American society, we also need to create new forms of solidarity, new and broad based social movements that move beyond the isolated and fractured politics of the current historical moment. ~ Henry Giroux

The historical moment when Bolshevism triumphed for itself in Russia and social democracy fought victoriously for the old world marks the inauguration of the state of affairs that is at the heart of the modern spectacle's domination: the representation of the working class has become an enemy of the working class. ~ Guy Debord

Every historical moment needs the stories to be told about it. ~ Paul Auster

The ancient voices that speak in Scripture evoke an ongoing dialogue that requires our active participation. Their sacred conversation about life in God's presence begs to be continued among believers today, for the fact of the matter is, the Bible is not self-interpreting. It is a living word through which God continues to meet us and speak to us in our own particular historical moment, and thus it demands to be newly interpreted for new historical situations. And interpretation is not simply reiteration of the text, repeating what was said before, but the hard work of bringing it into our own time and place. So every new generation of believers must join the interpretive conversation as it experiences the living God in relation to new circumstances. ~ Frances Taylor Gench

Amy Finnerty: At the end of it [MTV Unplugged taping], we went back to the hotel, and Kurt said to me, "I didn't do very good." I said, "What are you talking about? That was a historical moment, that was a really incredible performance. Why do you feel like you didn't do very good?"

He said, "Because everybody was so quiet, nobody really clapped that loud and they just kind of sat there." I said something to the effect of, "People felt like they were seeing Jesus Christ for the first time. It was intense for people. They were trying to be respectful by being quiet and just letting you do your thing." And then he kind of got a little smirk on his face and said, "Thank you. ~ Mark Yarm

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

Norman Cousins, endeavoring in his essay Modern Man Is Obsolete to express the deepest feelings of intelligent people at that staggering historical moment, wrote not about how to protect one's self from atomic radiation, or how to meet political problems, or the tragedy of man's self-destruction. Instead his editorial was a meditation on loneliness. "All man's history," he proclaimed, "is an endeavor to shatter his loneliness. ~ Rollo May

Princess Anlei to the newly knighted Lord Knight Corann: A princess does not need to rush into the fray like some ... starving creature, but moves deliberately, with a purpose. I did not think for a moment that this gathering would end without you speaking to me at some point. ~ Laurel A. Rockefeller

At this moment (letting a breeze ripple through her fingers like warm water), Maggie felt that the entire business of time's passing was more than she could bear. ~ Anne Tyler

The truce is that. You forgive all of these moments because you're constantly waiting for the moment when you will be seen. As an equal. As just another person. As another first person. There's a letting go that comes with it. ~ Claudia Rankine

I wrote the last sentence of The Patron Saint of Liars in early April and stumbled out of my apartment and into the beautiful spring feeling panicked and amazed. There is no single experience in my life as a writer to match that moment, the blue of the sky and the breeze drifting in from the bay. I had done the thing I had always wanted to do: I had written a book, all the way to the end. Even if it proved to be terrible, it was mine. ~ Ann Patchett

The moment before I jump is filled with anxiety and what-ifs. But then as soon as I enter the air, I'm filled with this calmness and that's the main attraction to it. That's why I do these death-consequence pursuits or arts. ~ Dean Potter

My mum told me, 'At that moment when you know you can't do both, the marriage and the kids, choose the marriage because you're going to be spending your whole lives together, so you have to put a lot of work and attention into the relationship.' ~ Bryce Dallas Howard

And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know ceases to exist. A moment that transform us into a different person from one heartbeat to the next. ~ Jan-Philipp Sendker

He didn't. But I didn't beat him up," Lock quickly added. "I…I simply threw him five…or maybe it was fifty feet into a tree."

The two friends gazed at each other for a long moment.

Finally, Lock shrugged. "That does make it all kind of awkward, doesn't it? ~ Shelly Laurenston

We always want more, he thought, we always take our past successes for granted and assume they point the way to future success. But the universe does not have our own best interests at heart, and to assume for a moment that it does, ever did or ever might is to make the most calamitous and hubristic of mistakes. ~ Iain M. Banks

The exact time of death, I think, is not something that matters so much at this moment for we will be reliving John Paul's life for many days and weeks and even years and decades and centuries to come. ~ Shepard Smith

Yeah, let's get John here. That way we can stall for a while longer. We can keep on doing nothing for just a little while longer."
Albert said, "Take it easy, Howard."
"Take it easy?" Howard jumped to his feet. "Yeah? Where were you last night, Albert? Huh? Because I didn't see you out there on the street listening to kids screaming, seeing kids running around hurt and scared and choking, and Edilio and Orc struggling, and Dekka hacking up her lungs and Jack crying and…
"You know who couldn't even take it?" Howard raged. "You know who couldn't even take what was happening? Orc. Orc, who's not scared of anything. Orc, who everyone thinks is some kind of monster. He couldn't take it. He couldn't…but he did. And where were you, Albert? Counting your money? How about you, Astrid? Praying to Jesus?"
Astrid's throat tightened. She couldn't breathe. For a moment panic threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to run from the room, run away and never look back.
Edilio got to his feet and put an arm around Howard. Howard allowed it, and then he did something Astrid never thought she would see. Howard buried his face in Edilio's shoulder and cried, racking sobs.
"We're falling apart," Astrid whispered for herself alone.
But there was no easy escape. Everything Howard had said was true. She could see the truth reflected in Albert's stunned expression. The two of them, the smart ones, the clever ones, the great defenders of truth and fairness and justice, ~ Michael Grant

He smiled slowly, as if particularly pleased with her question, and she couldn't help smiling in return. He reached around her, his arms nearly embracing her, and wrote in the notebook on her lap, Very good. Yes, the root ball should be quite big, even so. "Should be?" His breath was warm against her ear. I confess. I've never attempted to transplant a fully grown tree. I shall do so, however, this afternoon. Would you like to watch? If someone had asked her a fortnight ago if she'd like to watch a tree being planted, she would've looked at the questioner quite pityingly. But right now, this moment, she was rather excited at the prospect. Perhaps too many viewings of Caliban's nude chest had addled her brain. In any case she gazed into his thickly lashed brown eyes and smiled brilliantly. "Yes, please." His grin was quick and all-encompassing and, she couldn't help but think, solely for her. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Instead, she sat there, smiling that small, small inscrutable smile, like Mona Lisa herself, although I must say that until that moment, I'd never found Mona Lisa's smile particularly interesting or even particularly a smile. Looking at Lake, I understood what probably everyone else already knows about the woman in that painting: we are drawn to her not because of what the smile gives us but because it gives us nothing. We are waiting to get past the smile. We are waiting
we've spent centuries waiting
for the woman to speak. ~ Marisa De Los Santos

He shook the hair out of his face. "I'm not interested in court ladies," he said thickly, and kissed her. His mouth was warm, and his lips were smooth, and Celaena lost all sense of time and place as she slowly kissed him back. He pulled away for a moment, looked into her eyes as they opened, and kissed her again. It was different this time - deeper, full of need. ~ Sarah J. Maas

But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. ~ Anonymous

The 5 Principles of JOMO:

1. JOMO is the opposite of FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out).

2. JOMO is intentionally choosing what to keep and what to give.

3. JOMO is choosing to ignore the Joneses (NOT just NOT keep up).

4. JOMO is framing the moment to keep the big picture dream in focus.

5. JOMO is the art of improved results with minimalism over maximalism. ~ Richie Norton

I'm tired of every time I have a moment with you, you put murder between us."
"There is murder between us."
"No. If anything, that's what brought us here. Is that the problem? You can't shed Lieutenant Dallas long enough to feel?"
"That's who I am."
"Then that's who I want. ~ J.D. Robb

Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.
For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back.
I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.
But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out. ~ Mary E. Pearson

And so it is to the printing press
to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news
that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent. ~ John F. Kennedy

Reflection brakes men cowards. There is no object that can be put in competition with life, unless it is viewed through the medium of passion, and we are hurried away by the impulse of the moment. ~ William Hazlitt

In the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the green cluster and another treads the winepress. Nay, in each of our lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields. ~ George Eliot

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love. ~ Lady Gaga

I have simply given up a longevity which I never possessed anyhow. I have turned away from the con game which the gods run in their heavenly side-show. I no longer care under which shell the pea of immortality might be found. I don't need it. I have my moment which is quite enough. ~ Robert Sheckley

And every moment one expects the sky to fling a barrage from clouds so leaden they hang low across the city roofs and drown the horizon. ~ Anne Perry

When we study, discuss, analyze a reality, we analyze it as it appears in our mind, in our memory. We know reality only in the past tense. We do not know it as it is in the present, in the moment when it's happening, when it is. The present moment is unlike the memory of it. Remembering is not the negative of forgetting. Remembering is a form of forgetting.
[ ... ] We die without knowing what we have lived. ~ Milan Kundera

How else do I describe what I see…what I feel? When I look at a plant, I do not see a green object. I see Life. I see energy. I see a will to exist like no other. When I see an animal, I see more than fur and bone and blood. I see Love. Love is all around us. And in us. And through us. Love is us. It is everywhere. I see it. I feel it. I hear it. I only wish all of you could, too. If you could experience what I do every moment of every day, there would be no anger, no hate, no killing. I want to share what I know with the entire universe, but my words fall on deaf ears. People go right on fighting and hating and killing. And there is nothing I can do. ~ Simon Skiles

We Shall Overcome by Pete Seeger. I remember that moment with crystal clarity and I comprehend it as a turning point in my life: a moment terrible in its illumination of a toad in my soul, an ugliness so pervasive that it seemed my insides were vomit. ~ Pat Conroy

And at any moment it all ends with a heartbeat ... just one heartbeat, and there's no more time. One heartbeat and the chance to be saved is gone. One heartbeat and there's no more choosing - it's all sealed for eternal life or eternal death. ~ Jonathan Cahn

Michael allowed himself to look at Caddy for the first time since she had climbed into the car. It was a moment that he always put off for as long as possible because his concentration was never quite the same afterwards. ~ Hilary McKay

If at any moment of the day I ever think I'm remotely cool at all, which is hardly ever, I have two daughters who make sure that never happens. ~ Pat Benatar

Very well," it said. "I am a mighty fortress, sheathed in stone."
King Vikram thought for a moment.
"I am a catapult," he said. "Stone-breaking, fortress-sundering."
"I am a saboteur," countered the vetala. "Oath-breaker, weapon disabler."
"I am ill luck," said King Vikram. "Upending plots, dismaying plans."
The vetala was favorably impressed.
"I am fortune," it said. "I crown luck with destiny."
"I am free will," said King Vikram. "I challenge destiny with choice."
"I am divine will," said the vetala, "to which choice and destiny are one and the same."
"I am myself," said King Vikram. "The only thing that is mine to give, by choice or by destiny. ~ G. Willow Wilson

A lot of her songs were to do with Blake, which did not escape Mark's attention. She told Mark that writing songs about him was cathartic and that 'Back to Black' summed up what had happened when their relationship had ended: Blake had gone back to his ex and Amy to black, or drinking and hard times. It was some of her most inspired writing because, for better or worse, she'd lived it. Mark and Amy inspired each other musically, each bringing out fresh ideas in the other. One day they decided to take a quick stroll around the neighbourhood because Amy wanted to buy Alex Clare a present. On the way back Amy began telling Mark about being with Blake, then not being with Blake and being with Alex instead. She told him about the time at my house after she'd been in hospital when everyone had been going on at her about her drinking. 'You know they tried to make me go to rehab, and I told them, no, no, no.' 'That's quite gimmicky,' Mark replied. 'It sounds hooky. You should go back to the studio and we should turn that into a song.' Of course, Amy had written that line in one of her books ages ago. She'd told me before she was planning to write a song about what had happened that day, but that was the moment 'Rehab' came to life. Amy had also been working on a tune for the 'hook', but when she played it to Mark later that day it started out as a slow blues shuffle – it was like a twelve-bar blues progression. Mark suggested that she should think about doing a sixties girl-group sou ~ Mitch Winehouse

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Not only a few times, but every time he did not give in to his urge to go look for her, he resented the moment that came in its place. Even if the moment was beautiful and was something he valued, and made him who he was. He could not help but also long for that other life in which he lived with Della, even if she abused him. ~ Amanda Coplin

Do you want to know what you are? You are a creator. At every moment you are creating. The real question is, what are you creating? ~ Bryant H. McGill

Most of the history is a divine work of fiction. ~ Kedar Joshi

Part of the magic of the experience lay in the sheer beauty of the setting: the breathtaking sight of the high mountains, the sweep of the sky, the panorama of the great valley. The beauty drives you out of the self for a moment - so that for this time, the self is not. ~ Joseph Jaworski

I am strong as steel and my roots are planted deep in this southern soil. Time may have weathered me, but I will always bend with the wind ~ Nancy B. Brewer

What makes human life
which is inseparable from this moment
so precious is its fleeting nature. And not that it doesn't last but that it never returns again. ~ Steve Hagen

I was laughing, she was laughing, and I decided to go in for the kiss. I leaned in and then she suddenly leaned back. Crap. I was so embarrassed.
"I'm sorry. I went in for it, and it wasn't good." I hung my head down.
"No, no, no, I panicked! Please, try again!" she said.
"No, I won't make a fool of myself twice in one night. We'll try again another day," I said and I changed the subject. I was talking about something else for a while and then she whispered, "Just kiss me." I did and it was incredible. Every moment I spent with this girl, I fell more and more in love with her. ~ Noah Galloway

[Roger] "Do you know how amazingly beautiful you are to me?"
"As beautiful as you are to me." She slid her gaze down then back up with one of those secret smiles that played havoc with a man's mind.
He shook his head. "Nah, I couldn't be, because you'd be insane with your need to just watch me. You'd ache every moment to just touch me. Your nights would be consumed with dreams of me and you'd live every moment just to love me. ~ Jennifer St. Giles

Meditation is not so concerned with how much thinking is going on as it is with how much room you are making for it to take place within the field of your awareness from one moment to the next. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

I want my candidacy for the presidency of the United States to stand for a moment when we the people, stand once again for the independence from a government that has gotten too big and spends too much and has taken away too much of our liberties. ~ Michele Bachmann

When my best friend came to say goodbye the day before I went into exile - we embraced thinking we would never see each other again because I would never be allowed to return to Romania and she would never be able to leave the country - we couldn't bear to let go of each other. She walked out of the door three times and returned each time. Only after the third time did she leave me, walking straight down the street. I could see her pale jacket getting smaller and smaller and, in a strange way, brighter and brighter the more distant it became. I don't know if it was the winter sunshine of that February day, or the tears making my eyes glisten, or perhaps her jacket was made of some shiny fabric, but one thing I know for sure: as I watched her walk away her back glittered like a silver spoon. In this way, intuitively, I was able to put our parting into words. And that is also the best description of that moment. But what does a silver spoon have to do with a jacket? Nothing at all. Nor does it have anything to do with parting. Yet as a poetic image the spoon and the jacket need one another.

That is why I am mistrustful of language. I know from my own experience that to be accurate, language must always usurp something that doesn't belong to it. I keep asking myself what makes verbal images such thieves, why the most apt comparison appropriates qualities that don't belong to it. To get closer to reality we need to catch the imagination unawares. Only when one percepti ~ Herta Muller