Short Historical Quotes & Sayings

Side by side with the limitless possibilities opened up by the new technologies, reflection about international order must include the internal dangers of societies driven by mass consensus, deprived of the context and foresight needed on terms compatible with their historical character. In every other era, this has been considered the essence of leadership; in our own, it risks being reduced to a series of slogans designed to capture immediate short-term approbation. Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future. If the major countries conduct their policies in this manner internally, their relations on the international stage will suffer concomitant distortions. The search for perspective may well be replaced by a hardening of differences, statesmanship by posturing. As diplomacy is transformed into gestures geared toward passions, the search for equilibrium risks giving way to a testing of limits. — Henry Kissinger

She ... grabbed her bra, clasping it and shoving her arms through.
"Ye harness your udders?" The man was insufferable.
"For your information, it's a bra - short for brassiere, something that wasn't invented until the twentieth century. — Amy Jarecki

Just let me catch my breath, Red Macalister, and think. You've tipped my teapot handle over spout. — Debra Holland

Louisa rested her head against his shoulder. She inhaled a happy breath and allowed herself to relax and let the connection between them seep into her body. — Debra Holland

Our yearning for democracy is accompanied by a no less profound yearning for peace. And the media also faced the task of historical engineering to establish this required truth. We therefore have phenomena called 'peace missions' and the 'peace process'. These are terms that apply to whatever the United States happens to be doing or advocating at some moment ... in short, 'War is Peace'. — Noam Chomsky

Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to Isaiah, will find it one of the most wild and disorderly compositions ever put together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; and, except a short historical part, and a few sketches of history in the first two or three chapters, is one continued incoherent, bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning; a school-boy would scarcely have been excusable for writing such stuff; it is (at least in translation) that kind of composition and false taste that is properly called prose run mad. — Thomas Paine

In short, Europe's colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography - in particular, to the continents' different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate. — Jared Diamond

Hocus was an old cunning attorney. The words of consecration, "Hoc est corpus," were travestied into a nickname for jugglery, as "Hocus-pocus." - John Richard Green, A Short History of the English People, 1874. see Charles Macklin. — John Arbuthnot

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

Between the sands of time and tradition is a multitude of truths untold. — J.E. Cross

Barbara preferred to decorate the tree early instead of waiting for Christmas Eve, saying she wanted to have some time to enjoy the tree prior to the actual holiday. So three days before Christmas, she set Abe and the children to stringing popcorn, while she carefully unwrapped the glass ornaments from Germany that Robert brought down from the attic. — Debra Holland

Hetty shivered. Goodness, he had no business looking at her like that. Physician my eye! Physicians definitely didn't look like him; they were short, round and adorned with wigs and spectacles. — Susan Lodge

Measured in terms of the World Bank poverty standard, the number of poor people in China fell from 652 million to 135 million between 1981 and 2004 - in other words, more than half a billion people were lifted out of poverty. The number of poor people in the developing world as a whole declined by only 400 million over the same period. In other words, but for China, there would have been an increase in the number of poor people in the developing world. No wonder a World Bank report said that "a fall in the number of poor of this magnitude over such a short period is without historical precedent. — Wang Shaoguang

Put me down."
Of course, the man couldn't hear her. She barely heard the scratchy whisper.
"I said - "
"I heard you, Mrs. McBride, but I'm not putting you down. — MK McClintock

Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about ... In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing. — Margaret Thatcher

Nowadays our sense of history is being destroyed by the nature of our history - our memory is short and it grows shorter under the rapidity of the assault of events. What once occupied all our minds and filled the musty meeting halls with the awareness of heroism and destiny has now become chiefly a matter for the historical scholar. — Lionel Trilling

She allowed herself to relax and enjoy the wave of applause breaking over them. Marta glanced at her mother, who had tears running down her face, but her smile was the happy one Marta hadn't seen in a long time. She no longer looked drawn and sad, but the pretty Mutti her Vati had adored.
A hand brushed her head. But when she turned to look, no one stood close to that side of her. But she caught a whiff of a familiar scent, cigars- and-Vati smell, and knew in her heart her father had come to listen to her sing. — Debra Holland

Oh! my dearest love, why are our pleasures so short and so interrupted? How long is this to last?
Know you, my best Mary, that I feel myself, in your absence, almost degraded to the level of the vulgar and impure. I feel their vacant, stiff eyeballs fixed upon me, until I seem to have been infected with their loathsome meaning
to inhale a sickness that subdues me to languor. Oh! those redeeming eyes of Mary, that they might beam upon me before I sleep! Praise my forbearance
oh! beloved one
that I do not rashly fly to you, and at least secure a moment's bliss. Wherefore should I delay; do you not long to meet me? All that is exalted and buoyant in my nature urges me towards you, reproaches me with the cold delay, laughs at all fear and spurns to dream of prudence. Why am I not with you? — Michael Kelahan

I'll get right to the point," Mr. Carter said. "For the last year, we've been searching for a sheriff for our town." He grimaced. "Wouldn't have thought finding one would be so difficult."...
"She hasn't said yes," Carter commented. He slanted her an inquiring glance. "Well, K.C. Granger. Will you have us?"
At the marriage-vow-sounding question, K.C. felt a smile play around her lips, perhaps the first one since Charles' murder. In keeping with the formality of his question, and because a little imp of humor prompted her, she said, "I do. — Debra Holland

Before he could decide what to do, he heard a female voice call out, "Pepe? Mack?"
Pepe recognized the voice as belonging to Senora Rodriguez. No, Senora Thompson. There'd been a wedding in late summer. He hurried out to the main part of the barn to see what she wanted.
Senora Thompson stood just inside the entrance, holding the reins of her mare, Bianca, a black beauty with four white stockings and a blaze down her nose her husband had given her after their marriage. — Debra Holland

The memory of the revolutionary zealot who walked across Galilee gathering an army of disciples with the goal of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth, the magnetic preacher who defied the authority of the Temple priesthood in Jerusalem, the radical Jewish nationalist who challenged the Roman occupation and lost, has been almost completely lost to history. That is a shame. Because the one thing any comprehensive study of the historical Jesus should hopefully reveal is that Jesus of Nazareth - Jesus the man - is every bit as compelling, charismatic, and praiseworthy as Jesus the Christ. He is, in short, someone worth believing in. — Reza Aslan

Paul Revere's ride is perhaps the most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic. A piece of extraordinary news traveled a long distance in a very short time, mobilizing an entire region to arms. Not all word-of-mouth epidemics are this sensational, of course. But it is safe to say that word of mouth is-even in this age of mass communications and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns-still the most important form of human communication — Malcolm Gladwell

I felt that it was not a historical work, but that, under the guise of physical warfare, it described the duel that perpetually went on in the hearts of mankind, and that physical warfare was brought in merely to make the description of the internal duel more alluring. This preliminary intuition became more confirmed on a closer study of religion and the Gita. A study of the Mahabharata gave it added confirmation. I do not regard the Mahabharata as a historical work in the accepted sense. The Adiparva contains powerful evidence in support of my opinion. By ascribing to the chief actors superhuman or subhuman origins, the great Vyasa made short work the history of kings and their peoples. The persons therein described may be historical, but the author of the Mahabharata has used them merely to drive home his religious theme. — Mahatma Gandhi

In a broader sense, the value of heirlooms is always, as I have said, an historical value, derived from acts of production, use, or appropriation that have involved the object in the past. The value of an heirloom is really that of actions: actions whose significance has been, as it were, absorbed into the object's current identity - whether the emphasis is placed on the inspired labors of the artist who created it, the lengths to which some people have been known to go to acquire it, or the fact that it was once used to cut off a mythical giant's head. Since the value of the actions has already been fixed in the physical being of the object, it is perhaps a short leap to begin attributing the agency behind such actions to the object as well, and speak, as Mauss does, of valuables that transfer themselves from owner to owner or actively influence their owners' fates. The — David Graeber

We should perceive that man's period of historical existence, a period so short that his physical constitution has not been altered in the slightest degree, is insufficient to allow of any considerable mental change. — H.P. Lovecraft

Who would have thought God would send a bad man and a sheriff just to save Prince? — Debra Holland

Excerpted From Chapter One
I decided staying put in the alley was preferable to keeping the dead guy company, so I went outside and lit a Lucky Strike. The night air had gotten damper and chillier during the short time I was in the warehouse, or maybe it was just me.
Wisps of lacy fog were now sinking into the alley, and a skulking cat in search of dinner moved slowly along the opposite wall until he noticed me. He scurried off in a furry blur, eager to be far away from the evil invading his domain. The cat had better sense than me and I wished I could follow his example. — H.P. Oliver

I've played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men. — Bob Hoskins

As a novelist, Scott's influence was immense: his creation of a wide range of characters from all levels of society was immediately likened to Shakespeare's; the use of historical settings became a mainstay of Victorian and later fiction; his short stories helped initiate that form; his antiquarian researches and collections were a major contribution to the culture of Scotland. — Ronald Carter

Relativism reduces every element of absoluteness to relativity while making a completely illogical exception in favor of this reduction itself. Fundamentally it consists in propounding the claim that there is no truth as if this were truth or in declaring it to be absolutely true that there is nothing but the relatively true; one might just as well say that there is no language or write that there is no writing. In short, every idea is reduced to a relativity of some sort, whether psychological, historical, or social; but the assertion nullifies itself by the fact that it too presents itself as a psychological, historical, or social relativity. The assertion nullifies itself if it is true and by nullifying itself logically proves thereby that it is false; its initial absurdity lies in the implicit claim to be unique in escaping, as if by enchantment, from a relativity that is declared to be the only possibility. — Frithjof Schuon

Have you ever seen Russian nesting dolls?"
Thrown by the questions, she opened her eyes. Why would he suddenly speak about a child's toy? "I own a few of them."
"Then you must understand that undressing you is like playing with one of those dolls. I open one to find another beneath it. I took away your gown to find you are still as clothed as you were a moment ago and I wonder how many more layers I will have to work through to get down to you - the doll I'm searching for. — Dominique Eastwick

Ned seemed so different from any other man of her acquaintance, and, certainly, the antithesis of the rake she had set her sights on. She had chosen DeVere as her best prospect, yet after only this short time in Ned's company, she couldn't help fervently wishing that he was DeVere. She should feel triumphant that her goal was within easy reach ... In truth, it was as if her appetite had been whetted for beefsteak ... only to be served liver instead.
-A WILD NIGHT'S BRIDE — Victoria Vane

To visit the Tower, then, is to enter into contact not with a historical Sacred, as is the case for the majority of monuments, but rather with a new nature, that of human space: the Tower is not a trace, a souvenir, in short culture; but an immediate consumption of a humanity made natural by that glance which transforms it into space. — Roland Barthes

When I was younger I saw God as a mighty healer who did something for me, but after all these years of valleys and painful trials Jesus has become an ever-present friend who is with me all the time. He has gone from being an historical God to being a living God to me today. I've fallen short many times during these trials and testings, but he has always been faithful. Whenever I've asked him to help me he always has ... Jesus is everything and we are nothing. — Brother Yun

A crucial point here is that understanding is not only a matter of reflection, using finitary propositions, on some preexistent, already determinate experience. Rather, understanding is the way we "have a world," the way we experience our world as a comprehensible reality. Such understanding, therefore, involves our whole being - our bodily capacities and skills, our values, our moods and attitudes, our entire cultural tradition, the way in which we are bound up with a linguistic community, our aesthetic sensibilities, and so forth. I short, our understanding is our mode of "being in the world." It is the way we are meaningfully situated in our world through our bodily interactions, our cultural institutions , our linguistic tradition, and our historical context. Our more abstract reflective acts of understanding (which may involve grasping of finitary propositions) are simply an extension of our understanding in this more basic sense of "having a world. — Mark Johnson

That's my problem with new-age stuff. In common with many irrational views it harks back to a sense of something ancient while rejecting anything provably historical. It's like the miserable concept of Original Sin. There seems to be an obsession with the idea that there were ancient humans, uncorrupted by their capricious intellects, who lived in the 'right way'.
They didn't eat too much dairy or any wheat. They didn't sit down too long for their spines or walk around in posture-ruining shoes. They didn't consume too many sugars or fats for their unblemished guts to digest, or pop painkilling and antibiotic tablets to deal with the short-term symptoms of long-term problems that should be dealt with by wholesale lifestyle change. They didn't drink or smoke. They were perfect and we should sling out all our stuff and emulate them. Except they had an average life expectancy of about 18 and the planet could only support a few hundred thousand of them. Apart from that, good plan. — David Mitchell

Pepe absently thought, happy beyond words that he was actually holding hands with Lucia.
Passing a stall with a particularly pungent odor of manure made Pepe falter, realizing a barn wasn't the most romantic place to propose. Then he remembered the Savior born on this very night so long ago, and he figured if God could choose a stable for such an important miracle, he could too. — Debra Holland

As the campfire radiated warmth in the opening of the lean-to, Red Macalister crouched before the burning logs. He added more wood to the blaze, then rocked back on his boot heels, studying the flames, and decided the fire would do for the next few hours to ward off the cold winter night. He glanced up at the black sky dotted with diamonds. A clear night. — Debra Holland