Quotes & Sayings About Historical Thinking

The international equity question arises from the costs of climate change itself and mitigation varying greatly across countries. It is affected by the historical responsibility for current greenhouse gas emissions, which countries which were not responsible for what's in the atmosphere now think are very important. Currently rich countries don't think those issues are very important. — Ross Garnaut

I always believed that photography was subjective, interpretive and certainly did not represent the truth, but I did think that its status as a societal and historical referent needed to be both safeguarded and illuminated ... now photojournalism is devolving into yet another medium perceived as intending to shock, titillate, sell, distort. — Fred Ritchin

The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us. — James Russell Lowell

It's really the story of a young woman, or two women, growing up in Naples in a poor neighborhood. The way that they get out of it - or don't get out of it - that's part of it. But it's also the story of the mid-20th century in Italy so it's really like a social, historical and personal novel. I think that even though I didn't live in Italy in those years, it did cover that same type of generational upbringing that someone like me might've had in America. — Ann Goldstein

My love for you won't stop with my leaving. Come an evening over the years, when you step outside your door and hear the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, that'll be me, thinking of you, whispering your name, and loving you. — Penelope Williamson

What, did you think," she asked, laughing as he struggled up the bank, "that I, a Gaulish maiden, could not swim?"
"I did not think anything about it," Malchus said; "I saw you pushed in and followed without thinking at all."
Although they imperfectly understood each other's words the meaning was clear; the girl put her hand on his shoulder and looked frankly up in his face.
"I thank you," she said, "just the same as if you had saved my life. You meant to do so, and it was very good of you, a great chief of this army, to hazard your life for a Gaulish maiden. Clotilde will never forget. — G.A. Henty

Journalism is not easy. It's the first rough draft. I don't think you need to wait around until you have the definitive thing. You record what's there; don't delude yourself that this is the ultimate historical view. — Harold Evans

Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact, He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact, He shall reign, and you and I will stand there. I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts, and think about it, a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence. — Alexander MacLaren

The historical relationship between Christians and Jews for most of the two thousand years of Christianity has not been good and it's been mostly persecution by Christians of Jews - not all the time, not every place, but mostly it's been that. I think that's just a terribly regretful thing. I don't see it anywhere in the Scriptures that I read, that Christians are to persecute Jews. I think it's been quite damaging. I think it's been a bad witness. — Sam Brownback

Critical voices have to care about history. We have to care about the way in which things get controlled in the past because that's when the damage gets done and if we don't keep that historical memory, we will allow them to do it again next time. — Martin Baker

When the Bible is understood in its literary and historical context; errors, contradictions, and inconsistencies pose no threat to spirituality, whether that spirituality is theistic, non-theistic, or even explicitly Jesus-centered. The graver threat to what Christians call godliness may be fundamentalism - religion that flows from literalism and fear, religion based on anachronism and law. Fundamentalism teachers, in effect, that the tattered musings of our ancestors, those human words that so poorly represent the content of human thinking, somehow adequately describe God. Fundamentalism offers identity, security, and simplicity, but at a price: by binding believers to the moral imitations and cultural trappings of the Ancients, it precludes a deeper embrace of goodness, love, and truth - in other words, of Divinity. — Valerie Tarico

I loved reading historical novels when I was young, but I definitely don't think I wrote one. When I read my book through, when it was completely done and in printed galleys, I was surprised by how uninterested in the passage of time and history the book seemed to be. Even though you can feel it all there, that's just not what it's focused on. — Danielle Dutton

I think that even though The German Doctor (Wakolda) is placed in a historical context , it is a very intimate story. The film has been extremely well received around the world. It keeps on going around, opening in different markets, and connecting with the audience. In Argentina it was seen by over 450, 000 spectators, which is way more than anything we could have imagined. — Lucia Puenzo

Why vampires? You write centuries-long family sagas - why not write historical epics without any hint of the supernatural?"

"Well, that would be boring, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, God only knows what Tolstoy was thinking. — Carrie Vaughn

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

Countering the juggernaut of formalism is a minority worldview of equal historical standing, even though it does not share equal awareness or popularity. Variously known as hermeneutics, constructivism, interpretationalism, and most recently postmodernism, this tradition has consistently challenged almost everything advanced by the formalists. Iterative development practices, including XP, and object thinking are consistent with the hermeneutic worldview. Unfortunately, most object, XP, and agile practitioners are unaware of this tradition and its potential for providing philosophical support and justification for their approach to software development. — David West

I think utopianism and eschatology are really two sides of the same coin. They both assume that some massively transformative event is going to happen that's going to completely change the nature of society. They only disagree on whether we get a happy ending or all die horribly. And so utopianism is on the wane right now because at the moment most of the plausible candidates for huge historical transformation look like they're going to kill us. — Phillip Sandifer

The general consensus among historians, among the ones who can handle the fact that 'Lincoln' is, in fact, historical fiction, is that we demonstrate enormous fidelity to history and that, beyond that, we've actually contributed a line of thinking about Lincoln's presidency that's somewhat original. — Tony Kushner

Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority ... Every historical event in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. — C.S. Lewis

I'm pleased to say that it [ a paper on the history of Attica] got much recognition with a 99 grade. It was shown to the Attica Historical Society, who enthusiastically responded to it and read it at one of their annual meetings resulting in an article in the local newspaper about this excellent paper being presented. As I now look back at it, I think of that as being really my first book and did indicate that I did have interest in research. — Paul Smith

Since many people have been asking me to elaborate on why I think "Inglourious Basterds" is akin to Holocaust denial, I'll try to explain what I mean as succinctly as possible, by paraphrasing Roland Barthes: anything that makes Fascism unreal is wrong. For me, "Inglourious Basterds" makes the Holocaust harder, not easier to grasp
as a historical reality, I mean, not as a movie convention. Insofar as it becomes a movie convention, it loses its historical reality. — Jonathan Rosenbaum

Sometimes I have the feeling that you are not quite aware
and this honors you
of the historical greatness of your position, that you think too modestly about yourself. Everything you do is destined to be of historic significance. One day, your letters, your decisions, will belong to all mankind, like those of Wagner and Brahms. — Stefan Zweig

I don't think one can accurately measure the historical effectiveness of a poem; but one does know, of course, that books influence individuals; and individuals, although they are part of large economic and social processes, influence history. Every mass is after all made up of millions of individuals. — Denise Levertov

Are there still other possibilities? Of course there are. What is important to recognize is that all three historical options are really there, and the choice will depend on our collective world behavior over the next fifty years. Whichever option is chosen, it will not be the end of history, but in a real sense its beginning. The human social world is still very young in cosmological time. In 2050 or 2100, when we look back at capitalist civilization, what will we think? — Immanuel Wallerstein

Hope is the magic elixir that energizes dreams, fuels possibilities, and lets you live beyond the limits of your historical thinking. It is not a promise that something you want will happen - it is an invitation to enjoy the possibility of what you want while you and life negotiate the eventual outcome.
There is never a good reason not to hope! — Michael Neill

Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference. — Chang-rae Lee

If you think about the last 50 years, Africa's proximity and historical context has absolutely been with Europe and the United States, but their approach in dealing with the economic challenges that Africa faces in particular has been one of handing out aid, not developing economies, not building a long term relationship around agriculture and so on. — Dambisa Moyo

I spent hours gazing out at the bright rivers and lush meadows. How little different it can have looked when this was China's Outer Tartary. I also spent hours thinking about the pivotal moments in the story of the Amur, the fur-driven impulse that first brought the Russians to this place, the Manchu repulse that pushed them away, and finally the nineteenth-century nationalist urgings that brought them back. It was like a ball ricocheting over historical time, absorbing fresh energies (including, later, manufactured grievances) at critical points. — Dominic Ziegler

I am in complete alignment with my thinking with this statement by F. F. Bruce: 'Whether our approach is theological or historical, it does matter whether the New Testament documents are reliable or not'."


~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own. — Sufjan Stevens

You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into a novel - that's happened through my whole career. — Hilary Mantel

The most advanced, creative and original thinking is always a product of historical context and the influences of previous geniuses, mentors, and collaborators on the mind of the originator. — Michael J. Gelb

Yakov, if one becomes Hitler, just one - my God, you know what we've got!'
'No,' Liebermann said. 'No, I've been thinking about this for weeks. I say in my talks it takes two things to make it happen again, a new Hitler and social conditions like in the thirties. But that's not true. It takes three things: the Hitler, the conditions ... and the people to follow the Hitler.'
'And don't you think he'd find them?'
'No, not enough of them. I really think people are better and smarter now, not so much thinking their leaders are God. The television makes a big difference. And history, knowing ... Some he'd find, yes; but no more, I think- I hope- than the pretend Hitlers we have now ... — Ira Levin

Historiology, always understood in its claim to possess the character of modern science, is a constant avoidance of history. Yet even in this avoidance, it still maintains a relation to history, and that makes historiology and the historiologist bivalent. If history is not explained historiologically and calculated in terms of a particular image for the specific ends of supporting a position and imparting a conviction, if history is instead placed back into the uniqueness of its inexplicability, and if, through this inexplicability, all historiological bustle and all the opinions and beliefs that arise from it are placed into question and into decision with respect to themselves, then what is being carried out is what could be called historical thinking. — Martin Heidegger

If you think about how broadcast mini-series approach historical events, there is a hagiography. There has been a soft, very glossy idea about history. And one of the things I like about Game of Thrones, for example, is just the grit and the authenticity. — John Landgraf

Each feminist work has tended to be received as if it emerged from nowhere; as if each one of us had lived, thought, and worked without any historical past or contextual present. This is one of the ways in which women's work and thinking has been made to seem sporadic, errant, orphaned of any tradition of its own. — Adrienne Rich

All our lives, we long, we long, thinking it is the moon we long for. So how, when we meet it in the shape of a most fair woman, can we do less than leave all others for her? WB Yeats — Orna Ross

Before one actually visits them, everyone tends to think of their favorite countries as one grand Disneyland filled with national monuments and historical treasures conveniently laid out for easy viewing, when what they really are filled with, of course, is people going to work, laundromats and places to buy rat poison. — Bette Midler

Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had some intelligence, but that no man is likely to have arrived at complete and final truth on any subject whatever. When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came toseemtrue. Thisexercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the scope of our thinking, and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind. — Bertrand Russell

I think the important thing is to realize that the establishment of a democracy is sometimes a messy thing and it takes time. Yeah, we've been at it 240 years. — Mike Huckabee

The purpose of such propaganda phrases as "war on terrorism" and attacking "those who hate freedom" is to paralyze individual thought as well as to condition people to act as one mass, as when President Bush attempted to end debate on Iraq by claiming that the American people were of one voice. The modern war president removes the individual nature of those who live in it by forcing us into a uniform state where the complexities of those we fight are erased. The enemy-terrorism, Iraq, Bin Laden, Hussein-becomes one threatening category, something to be defeated and destroyed, so that the public response will be one of reaction to fear and threat rather than creatively and independently thinking for oneself. Our best hope for overcoming perpetual thinking about war and perpetual fear about both real and imagined threats is to question our leaders and their use of empty slogans that offer little rationale, explanation or historical context. — Nancy Snow

The meditation of inceptual thinking concerns us (ourselves) and yet does not. It does not concern us so as to bring out from us the prescriptive determinations; but it does concern us as historical beings and concerns us specifically in the plight of the abandonment by being (at first, decline in the understanding of being, and then forgetting of being). It concerns us, who thus are initially posited in our exposure amid beings; it concerns us in this manner in order that we find our way beyond ourselves to selfhood. — Martin Heidegger

We should not delude ourselves into thinking that our historical narratives, as commonly constructed, are anything more than retrofits. — Niall Ferguson

One may take the line that metaphorical devices are inevitable in the early stages of any science and that although we may look with amusement today upon the "essences," "forces," "phlogistons," and "ethers," of the science of yesterday, these nevertheless were essential to the historical process. It would be difficult to prove or disprove this. However, if we have learned anything about the nature of scientific thinking, if mathematical and logical researches have improved our capacity to represent and analyze empirical data, it is possible that we can avoid some of the mistakes of adolescence. Whether Freud could have done so is past demonstrating, but whether we need similar constructs in the future prosecution of a science of behavior is a question worth considering. — B.F. Skinner

Our thinking is permeated by our historical myths — Freeman Dyson

connections. For instance, the National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) suggests that students engage in the deepest "historical thinking" when they consider "those issues, past and present, that challenge [them] to enter knowledgeably into the historical record and to bring sound historical perspectives to bear in the analysis of a problem" (1996). — Sarah Cooper

I cannot look at modern buildings without thinking of historical ones. — Kevin McCloud

As he gets older, he is given, increasingly, to thinking of his life as a series of retrospectives, assessing each season as it passes as if it's a vintage of wine, dividing years he's just lived into historical eras: The Ambitious Years. The Insecure Years. The Glory Years. The Delusional Years. The Hopeful Years. — Hanya Yanagihara

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

Antonio could not stop thinking about Dean Fiero's words during his welcoming speech, "Look to your left; now to your right. One of you will not be here in 1915!" These words were used to intimidate freshman law students to draw their attention to the importance of being diligent in their forthcoming studies. They still are. — Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

But what if Oscar - "
"Breathes fire and threatens to cook you over a grill?"
"I was thinking what if he gets mad, but I think your way works as well."
"Then you shall make for a tasty meal. — Erica Sehyun Song

In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a Savior. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity. — Frank Zindler

So what's the point of longing for a new, monumental category hidden somewhere in the non-Western discourse? On the contrary, shouldn't we emphasize that Western art historical thinking has not necessarily to be regarded as monumental? This would be a good condition for dialogue with scholars who are not (or do not want to be) affiliated with "our" tradition. — Ralph Ubl

There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them. — C. G. Jung

No, It's not fair. But I was thinking more along the lines of the Pentagon and Washington itself. Sometimes I suspect that those who are running things might grow addicted to power. Secrecy's essential in wartime, but once in place, will it ever be removed? — Marge Piercy

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

Doctor Mengele is such a powerful character historically, as powerful as Nazism itself, so these subjects always tend to be the protagonists. What I think is that despite this historical references, Wakolda or The German Doctor is a very intimate story. — Lucia Puenzo

There is no formula or doctrine of the church's role in society. The church lives out its witness in concrete historical situations, waiting for God to lead. There is a role for thinking about what to do next, but this thinking should be always done in the context of waiting on God. Prayer is evidence of dependency on God. In prayer we envisage a new future, and we protest the world order as it is. We stand against darkness and invoke God's light. Using weapons of the Spirit, we pull down strongholds and join the uprising against the present disorder. Prayer shows that we belong to a different order of reality which defies the powers of evil and anticipates the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdom of Christ (Rev 11:15). History belongs to intercessors, because history belongs to God.70 Mission is — Clark H. Pinnock

Nationality is not a universal human principle but an historical, local fact ... Every nation, even a small one, has its own character, its own particular way of life and manner of speaking, feeling, thinking, and behaving. These distinctive features are the essence of nationality, the product of a nation's entire history and conditions of existence. Every nation, like every individual, is of necessity what it is, and has an unquestionable right to be itself. So-called national rights consist precisely of this. — Mikhail Bakunin

The truth is that capitalism has not only multiplied population figures, but at the same time, improved the people's standard of living in an unprecedented way. Neither economic thinking nor historical experience suggests that any other social system could be as beneficial to the masses as capitalism. The results speak for themselves. The market economy needs no apologists and propagandists. It can apply to itself the words of Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's: Si monumentum requires, circumspice. — Ludwig Von Mises

In historical fact, all of history's despots, combined, never managed to get things done as well as this rambunctious, self-critical civilization of free and sovereign citizens, who have finally broken free of worshipping a ruling class and begun thinking for themselves. Democracy can seem frustrating and messy at times, but it delivers. — David Brin

I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know. — Sarah Dessen

My mind does not easily accept stately historical processions. — Zadie Smith

A newly born genre never supplants or replaces any already existing genres. Each new genre merely supplements the old ones, merely widens the circle of already existing genres. For every genre has its own predominant sphere of existence, in which it is irreplaceable. Thus the appearance of the polyphonic novel does not nullify or in any way restrict the further productive development of monologic forms of the novel (biographical, historical, the novel of everyday life, the novel-epic, etc.), for there will always continue to exist and expand those spheres of existence, of man and nature, which require precisely objectified and finalizing, that is monological, forms of artistic cognition. But again we repeat: the thinking human consciousness and the dialogic sphere in which this consciousness exists, in all its depth and specificity, cannot be reached through a monologic artistic approach. — Mikhail Bakhtin

Pynchon has been a favorite writer and a major influence all along. In many ways I see him as almost the start of a certain mutant pop culture imagery with esoteric historical and scientific information. Pynchon is a kind of mythic hero of mine, and I suspect that if you talk with a lot of recent SF writers you'll find they've all read Gravity's Rainbow (1973) several times and have been very much influenced by it. I was into Pynchon early on- I remember seeing a New York Times review of V. when it first came out- I was just a kid- and thinking, Boy, that sounds like some really weird shit! — William Gibson

You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws. — Hilary Mantel

unless a company has some kind of economic moat, predicting how much shareholder value it will create in the future is pretty much a crapshoot, regardless of what the historical track record looks like. Looking at the numbers is a start, but it's only a start. Thinking carefully about the strength of the company's competitive advantage, and how it will (or won't) be able to keep the competition at bay, is a critical next step. — Pat Dorsey

Each and every one of us has been born into a given historical reality, ruled by particular norms and values, and managed by a unique economic and political system. We take this reality for granted, thinking it is natural, inevitable and immutable. We forget that our world was created by an accidental chain of events, and that history shaped not only our technology, politics and society, but also our thoughts, fears and dreams. The cold hand of the past emerges from the grave of our ancestors, grips us by the neck and directs our gaze towards a single future. We have felt that grip from the moment we were born, so we assume that it is a natural and inescapable part of who we are. Therefore we seldom try to shake ourselves free, and envision alternative futures. — Yuval Noah Harari

Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him. — Leon Trotsky

Most world-historic events - great military battles, political revolutions-are self-consciously historic to the participants living through them. They act knowing that their decisions will be chronicled and dissected for decades or centuries to come. But epidemics create a kind of history from below: they can be world-changing, but the participants are almost inevitably ordinary folk, following their established routines, not thinking for a second about how their actions will be recorded for prosperity. And of course, if they do recognize that they are living through a historical crisis, it's often too late- because, like it or not, the primary way that ordinary people create this distinct genre of history is by dying. — Steven Johnson

Russia is an ancient country with historical, profound traditions and a very powerful moral foundation. And this foundation is a love for the Motherland and patriotism. Patriotism in the best sense of that word. Incidentally, I think that to a certain extent, to a significant extent, this is also attributable to the American people. — Vladimir Putin

Buddhism, I think, is probably facing the single most difficult transition from one historical epoch to another, which is really the transition to modernity. — Stephen Batchelor

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

"Playing" the resources of characterology for the sake of clarification and insight into the structures of actual existence is many times more daunting than playing a piano; it requires the thinking of chords of thoughts, not just isolated simplisms or abstracta; it demands the shaping or encompassing of morphological modes of intelligence that can comprehend gestalten, syndromes, historical and civilizational patterns in which it is not the particulars but their interactive significance (as an ensemble of actualities or principles) that is vital. — Kenny Smith

I am a political animal, because for God's sakes I think "We The People" is a job. I think experienced self government demands on all levels - intellectual, moral, historical, and spiritual level. We are supposed to be engaged and give directions to our elected employees. — Ted Nugent

Just recognizing and naming that many of the things we treat as historical fact are stories can help erode their power over our sense of identity and thinking. If they are stories rather than "truth," we can write new stories that better represent the country we aspire to be. Our new stories can be about diverse people working together to overcome challenges and make life better for all, about figuring out how to live sustainably on this one planet we share, and on deep respect for cooperation, fairness, and equity instead of promoting hyper-competitive individualism. — Annie Leonard

The question 'Why white kids love hip-hop?' forces us immediately to deal with the historical weight of race in America. On the surface people see hip-hop and race as nothing new. I think the ways young white Americans are engaging hip-hop suggest something more. — Bakari Kitwana

Gower is the first English writer to use "history" as an English word. He regularly rhymes the term with "memory," for to his way of thinking history and memory are correlative. That is, without history, there can be no memory; and without memory, there can be no history. But the point of historical knowledge is not to enable people to live in the past, or even to understand the past in the way we would expect a modern historian to proceed; rather, it is to enable people to live more vitally in the present. — Russell A. Peck

I found myself thinking that the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Muhammad died. And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The modern Westerner, persuaded that he has a right to "think for himself" and imagining that he exercises this right, is unwilling to acknowledge that his every thought has been shaped by cultural and historical influences and that his opinions fit, like pieces of jigsaw puzzle, into a pattern which has nothing random about it. — Charles Le Gai Eaton

I think we are living in an era of being hyper-concerned about, Is it us? Because we have this historical awareness. People really want to know: will it be us or our kids or our grandkids to live through this? We don't want it to happen, we don't want to be the ones with the poisoned water, but at the same time, I think there is this curiosity, like, Am I one of the "lucky" ones who gets to be here at the end? That's the tension I'm interested in. — Lucy Corin

This is a major, wide-ranging, and comprehensive book. A philosophical investigation that is also a literary and historical study, Truth and Truthfulness asks how and why we have come to think of accuracy, sincerity, and authenticity as virtues. Bernard Williams' account of their emergence is as detailed and imaginative as his defense of their importance is spirited and provocative. Williams asks hard questions, and gives them straightforward and controversial answers. His book does not simply describe and advocate these virtues of truthfulness; it manifests them. — Alexander Nehamas

Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway? — Barbara Ehrenreich

Aletheia, the Greek term subsequently translated "truth," literally means the unhidden, and, in awe of this unhiddenness, subsequent thinking sets aside the underlying hiddenness instead of contemplating it. Differing essentially from aletheia despite its relation to this "truth" of the first beginning, the truth grounds as the clearing for the hiddenness of historical-being. "The clearing for the concealment as the primordial-unified unfolding is the abyss of the ground that the here [Da] unfolds as" (65: 350). Time-space. — Daniel O. Dahlstrom

Even the favorite reviews, the audience response is the movie is too slow, deliberately slow. But for the Chinese audience, the biggest complaint is it happens too quick. I think the historical background that build into our genes is different. American people has never been occupied. The deep sadness and sentimentality, the cultural background that relates to melodrama that we relate to and grow up with, the propaganda, I didn't imagine the difference is so big. It's a very interesting cultural phenomenon. — Ang Lee

Science works through replication, rectification and modification. But when it comes to religion, people simply tend to accept the theoretical preachers and their claims of historical God experiences without a single question. If there has been one experience in this world in any branch of knowledge, it absolutely follows that that experience will be repeated eternally. If they are not repeated through natural processes, the thinking humanity would have no way but to disprove that such an experience ever occurred in the history. — Abhijit Naskar

My father prided himself on maintaining traditions that were hundreds of years old. You'll feel as if you've stepped back into the eighteenth century."
Her brows lifted in surprise. He could see the wheels turning in her clever brain, but she chose merely to nod, and perversely, though he knew he would not like it, he wanted to know what she was thinking. "Go on. Say it."
"It is nothing. Only - you are very much a man of the nineteenth century."
"You mean you're not surprised I left such a backward place."
"Such a backward place must be crying out for a man like you." Ainsley pushed her windswept hair out of her eyes. — Marguerite Kaye

You think about people like Hank Williams, who stood on that spot of wood, and Mr. Acuff, and, of course, George Jones. And just about anybody you can think of who has made country music has been on that stage. That's what makes you so nervous - to think about the historical part of the Opry and how it's played such a part in country music. — Alan Jackson

In a situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a "quick return to power," forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into an impossible "dialogue" with the dominant elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls "realism."
Manipulation, like the conquest whose objectives it serves, attempts to anesthetize the people so they will not think. For if the people join to their presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the threat of their emergence materializes in revolution ... One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success. This manipulation is sometimes carried out directly by the elites and sometimes indirectly, through populist leaders. — Paulo Freire

Maddie squirmed out from under him. "I'm sorry. So sorry. I know this is supposed to be physical. Impersonal. It's only that I keep thinking of lobsters."
He flipped onto his back and lay there, blinking up at the ceiling. "Until just now, I would have said there was nothing remaining that could surprise me in bed. I was wrong."
She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest. "I am the girl who made up a Scottish lover, wrote him scores of letters, and kept up an elaborate ruse for years. Does it really surprise you that I'm odd?"
"Maybe not."
"Lobsters court for months before mating. Before the male can mate with her, the female has to feel secure enough to molt out of her shell. If a spiny sea creature is worth months of effort, can't I have just a bit more time? I don't understand the urgency. — Tessa Dare

These include Philip Marshall Dale, Medical Biographies: The Ailments of Thirty-Three Famous Persons (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952); Brian Dillon, The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives (New York: Faber and Faber, 2010); Douglas Goldman et al., Retrospective Diagnoses of Historical Personalities as Viewed by Leading Contemporary Psychiatrists (Bloomfield, NJ: Schering Corporation, 1958); Kay Redfield Jamison, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (New York: Free Press, 1993); Jeffrey A. Kottler, Divine Madness: Ten Stories of Creative Struggle (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006); Philip Mackowiak, Post-Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries (Philadelphia: American College of Physicians, 2007); Roy Porter, Madness: A Brief History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); David Rettew, Child Temperament: New Thinking About the Boundary Between Traits and Illness (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013). Articles — Claudia Kalb

What sort of power is it that really and truly renders the deity present? Human beings automatically think of God as someone who possesses and wields power. Jesus forces people to consider whether that deeply rooted conviction is true or not. In historical terms it is readily apparent that power, left to its own inertial tendencies, tends to be oppressive in fact. So it cannot be the ultimate meditation of God, though human beings might tend to think so — Jon Sobrino

We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated ... The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain. — Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado

True thinking takes place within a frame of continuous historical development in which progress in understanding is being made ... No constructive thinking that is worth while can be undertaken that sets at nought the intellectual labours of the centuries that are enshrined in tradition, or be undertaken on the arrogant assumption that everything must be thought through de novo as if nothing true had already been done or said. He who undertakes that kind of work will inevitably be determined unconsciously by the assumptions of popular piety which have already been built into his mind. — T.F. Torrance

"Contemporary art" for me is a kind of historical term that describes the 40 years between the Berlin Wall going up and then coming down. I'm not sure who will come up with a better term to describe art, but I think contemporary art is actually done for. — Liam Gillick

I believe I was raised with feminist values, but I don't think I ever heard my Mom call herself a feminist. Before I identified as a feminist myself, I thought of feminism as more of a historical term describing the women's movement in the '70s but didn't know much about what they had done and didn't think it applied to my life at all. — Julie Zeilinger

We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. — Pope John Paul II

Holding the bread to her chest, she made her way home, thinking of those dreamy winter afternoons, when the light looked as it did now, the crystalline blue of the sky slipping into a faded purple, as faint as a bruise. — Alexis Landau

Like any pseudo scientific thinking, denialism begins with a desired conclusion. Rather than supporting a controversial or rejected claim, like many pseudo sciences, denialists maintain that a generally accepted scientific or historical claim is not true, usually for ideological reasons. Denialists then engage in what is called motivated reasoning, rationalizing why the undesired claim is not true or at least not proven. They therefore are working backwards from their desired conclusion, filling in justifications for what they believe, rather than following logic and evidence wherever it leads. — Steven Novella