History Is Bunk Quotes

You all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk. ~ Aldous Huxley

As a young man, I was very interested in how people lived in earlier times; how they got from place to place, lighted their homes, cooked their meals and so on. So I went to the history books. Well, I could find out all about kings and presidents; but I could learn nothing of their everyday lives. So I decided that history is bunk. ~ Henry Ford

Proficiency in art is a contract with your self and the empowerment of your self. Not all of us demand or even desire proficiency, but for those who do it's necessary to temper the influence of groups. And while some artists think history is bunk, the historical evidence is overwhelming: "In my isolation I grow stronger." ~ Paul Gauguin

Above all, what you have as young people that's vitally needed to make social change, is impatience. You want it to happen now. There have to be enough people that say, "We want it now, in our lifetime. " We want to see apartheid in South Africa come down right now. We want to see the war in Central America stop right now. We want the CIA off our campus right now. We want an end to sexual harassment in our communities right now. Be adventurists in the sense of being bold and daring. Be opportunists and seize this opportunity, this moment in history, to go out and save our country. It's your turn now. ~ Abbie Hoffman

One phrase you don't want kicking off your obituary is, Never, in the long history of bungee jumping ... ~ Dana Gould

Those in the System, would like us to share their belief that all the changes [we are witnessing] are not connected: they are simply anomalies, isolated symptoms to be treated or preferably ignored, before the all-powerful Western capitalist patriarchal model goes on to ever greater heights and grander ejaculations. Most are numb to it, caught in fear, denial or resistance.

But we, Burning Woman, know this process intimately. Amongst Burning Women and Men, there is a fierce, quiet knowing that these are both the death pangs of the old, and the birthing pangs of the new. ~ Lucy H. Pearce

There is little history in the study of nature, and there is little nature in the study of history. I want to show how we can remedy that cultural lag by developing a new perspective on the historian's enterprise, one that will make us Darwinians at last. ~ Donald Worster

I didn't want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn't walk away; he would giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful ~ Kara Walker

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic. ~ Frederick Douglass

I recall a battle once,' said Dickens, looking up at a tree. 'In history, it was. And there was this company, see, and they was a ragtag of different squads and covered in mud in any case, and they found themselves hiding in a field of carrots. So as a badge they all pulled up carrots and stuck them on their helmets so's they'd know who their friends were and incidentally have a nourishing snack for later, which is never to be sneezed at on a battlefield.'
'Well? So what?" said Dibbler.
'So what's wrong with a lilac flower?' said Dickens, reaching up and pulling down a laden branch. 'Makes a spanking plume, even if you can't eat it…'
And now, Vimes thought, it ends. ~ Terry Pratchett

[talking about the Holocaust]
'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.'
'But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be ... even on the Holocaust. ~ Alan Bennett

History clearly
shows that governments that have tried to contain, regulate, or otherwise
usurp capital have failed. It is the same with brainpower; no
one has a monopoly on brainpower. Controlling brainpower is like
herding cats. Brainpower creates capital, and capital fuels brainpower.
It is a fundamental dynamic principle. Great ideas, solutions, insights,
or inventions will develop only where they are nurtured and properly
rewarded. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

Do you know a Psychopath?

You do not know me; but after reading my memoir you will know me a little better and you will have had the experience of safely getting into the mind and life of a young psychopath in training.

Critics have written: It is a powerful and unusual memoir; brutal and raw.

A Psychopath In Training: In 1997 psychiatrist's contracted by the Correctional Service and the National Parole Board wrote in their final report, before I was released back into the community, they had diagnosed me to be a psychopath.

A Psychopath: How does one become a Psychopath?

After of the death of my young mother, when I was fourteen, I became a ward of the state and forced into the care and custody of the Catholic Christian Brothers at St. John's Catholic Training School for Boys until after I turned sixteen. Since then I have been incarcerated over seventeen years in various prisons, institutions and juvenile detention centres. I have been interviewed and treated by so many prison psychiatrists and psychologists I should be called the professional.

In my youth I have experienced almost every kind of sleaze, sex and violence humans can inflict on each other. I had to learn the hard way on how to identify and deal with the people who were the dangerous psychopath's in my life and the proof I succeeded is; I am still alive.

My book cover depicts what is coming out of the government foster homes and prison ~ Michael A. Hodge

History is only a catalogue of the forgotten. ~ Henry Adams

Fidel is really a special case. He's a personality of history. ~ Ricardo Alarcon

Amid increasing chaos, here lay the potential dominants. Much action and the play of forces even on a huge scale and with enormous material effects is often irrelevant, and counts for little or nothing in the final result: but along the chain of commanding causation even the smallest events are vital. It is these which should be studied and pondered over; for in them is revealed the profound significance of human choice and the sublime responsibility of men. No one can tell that he may not some day set a stone rolling or take or neglect some ordinary step which in its consequences will alter the history of the world. ~ Winston S. Churchill

For thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we've read is from the male point of view. ~ Stacy Schiff

History ... with its long, leisurely, gentlemanly labors, the books arriving by post, the cards to be kept and filed, the sections to be copied, the documents to be checked, is the ideal pursuit for the New England mind. ~ Elizabeth Hardwick

...first, in order to remember, something must be forgotten; second, the place where memories are stored has no boundaries. In other words, forgetting is a twin; its tandem effect is best called "simultancous" distraction, the instant when one memory defoliates another. This fuzzy double - one devouring the other - presumably inhibits learning ~ Norman Klein

I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. ~ Oscar Wilde

Home is an emotional state, a place in the imagination where feelings of security, belonging, placement, family, protection, memory and personal history abide. -Thomas Moore ~ Louisa Thomsen Brits

What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored. ~ Eric Hoffer

If a theme runs through the history of Florida, it is this: something's great, and someone comes along to mess it up. ~ Eliot Kleinberg

Even if yesterday existed, today is just real, not a fantasy like the past. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation. ~ Will Rogers

Must the interest of life wane for us all as the progress of knowledge curtails the playground of imagination? No doubt it must in some measure, but there is another cause.
I believe that in these days we have too many occupations, too many interests; we know too many things, and, if you will, have too many advantages and facilities. Our faculty of taking an interest is dissipated and frittered away. ~ Eha

History is filled with inferior brands outselling superior ones thanks to better branding. Only superior branding has the power to overcome and reverse this (and superior products and services deserve superior branding). ~ David Brier

I have always felt that this story is universal. When I began to understand the details of the history, I felt that the most compelling aspect was not what happened, but what continues to happen and how it is denied. ~ Atom Egoyan

Everyone lives in two worlds," Maggie said, speaking in an absentminded sort of way while she studied her letters. "There's the real world, with all its annoying facts and rules. In the real world, there are things that are true and things that aren't. Mostly the real world s-s-s-suh-sucks. But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head. An inscape, a world of thought. In a world made of thought - in an inscape - every idea is a fact. Emotions are as real as gravity. Dreams are as powerful as history. Creative people, like writers, and Henry Rollins, spend a lot of their time hanging out in their thoughtworld. S-s-strong creatives, though, can use a knife to cut the stitches between the two worlds, can bring them together. Your bike. My tiles. Those are our knives. ~ Joe Hill

Men and women are learning animals. If you do not see what they have learned, you're blind. They are creatures ever changing, ever improving, ever expanding their vision and the capacity of their hearts. You are not fair to them when you speak of this as the most bloody century; you are not seeing the light that shines ever more radiantly on account of the darkness; you are not. seeing the evolution of the human soul! ... ... True, what you say about war. Yes, and the cries of the dying, I too have heard them; we have all heard them, through all the decades; and even now, the world is shocked by daily reports of armed conflict. But it is the outcry against these horrors which is the light I speak of; it's the attitudes which were never possible in the past. It is the intolerance of thinking men and women in power who for the first time in the history of the human race truly want to put an end to injustice in all forms.
Marius to Akasha (The Vampire Chronicles) ~ Anne Rice

There is no great religion without a great schism. All of them have it. And that's because you're dealing with something called faith. And faith is not something you can prove; faith is personal opinion. Uh, when you're dealing with something with certainty, like, y'know, science or logic, you don't have the
there's no wiggle room; that's why history is not filled with warring math cults, y'know, because you can settle the issue; you can prove something to be right or wrong, and that's the end of the argument: next case. Whereas, when you're dealing with faith, you can forever argue your point, or another point, because you're dealing with intangibles. Personally, I think, faith is what you ask of somebody when you don't have the goods to prove your point. ~ Tom Quinn

Revolutionaries - true revolutionaries - are aggressive, ruthless, and generally seize the main chance, as William Henry Drayton did when he saw that stump-speaking was getting him nowhere. But defenders of the status quo tend toward caution and legalisms and inaction until it is too late ~ John Buchanan

It made me realise just how desperate the world is for a superhero. I don't just mean those of the comic books. For there is an inexhaustible supply of would-be superheroes throughout history and across the globe. From the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood, to the Gods of a thousand religions. From Santa Claus to Peter Pan to a myriad other folklore characters. Monsters from the Lochs. Spirits from the other side. Aliens from distant planets. The world longs for something ... something else. Something powerful and exciting. A little bit of magic. ~ Paul J. Newell

As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums. ~ Barack Obama

The claim "oh, that's ancient history" is almost always a wish, am anxious attempt to put a boundary of time around some event that really is not over at all; it is a bid to silence the past. ~ Robert A. Orsi

George W. Bush is the worst President
in all of American history. ~ Helen Thomas