Quotes about History

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Pliny suggested that the ostrich, then newly discovered, was the result of a cross between a giraffe and a gnat. (It would, I suppose, have to be a female giraffe and a male gnat.) In practice there must be many such crosses which have not been attempted because of a certain understandable lack of motivation.

In everyday life, it is very rare that we are confronted with new facts about events of long ago. Our memories are almost never challenged. They can, instead, be frozen in place, no matter how flawed they are, or become a work in continual artistic revision.

Out of all these contending propensities and child-rearing practices, some people emerge with an intact ability to fantasize, and a history, extending well into adulthood, of confabulation

Brewing was often viewed as an appropriate activity for widows, who found it hard to farm land.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

The Resurrection is the emergence of the necessity of giving glory to God: the reckoning with what is unknown and unobservable in Jesus, the recognition of Him as Paradox, Victor and Primal History.

Over and over the question addressed to Jesus arises in the history of the church: 'Lord, will those who are saved be few?' Jesus' answer seems so non-committal, so evasive: 'Strive to enter by the narrow door' (Luke 13:23f.). But this evasiveness is only apparent. This is the answer to this question. As long as we see only in a mirror, in riddles, many questions will remain unanswered, But this question has been answered, once for all time.

It was not that they hoped to escape another judgment which might be coming upon them; but they desired solidarity. Today we hear a great deal about the "solidarity of humanity"; and the endeavor to secure it by putting God out of His own world is a very old piece of history. Apart from Him, the only really cohesive force for humanity is absent, and confusion must be the result.

Building a sacred history together teaches us to be persistent in doing good, Even when we want to do something else.

I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise.