Historical Quotes - Page 36

A peculiarity of the American historical sensibility allows us to be proud of great-grandfathers (or even grandfathers) who lived in crushing poverty, while the poverty of a father is too close for comfort.

I consider myself a person who comes from a Muslim culture. In any case, I would not say that I'm an atheist. So I'm a Muslim who associates historical and cultural identification with this religion.

More and more clearly every day, out of biology, anthropology, sociology, history, economic analysis, psychological insight, plain human decency and common sense, the necessary mandate of survival that we shall love all our neighbors as we do ourselves, is being confirmed and reaffirmed.

Historical costumes from the 18th and 19th centuries look so complicated, but when you see the patterns, it's very systematic. I've always been impressed by how the patterns economize the fabric.

When I was young, watching historical movies made me feel absolutely sublime. But the first few times I visited costume museums, I was really disappointed because it was not at the level I saw in movies. It was not the level of the image I'd imagined.

I'd love to do historical pictures more, but I don't know if I can.

In any film there's always a historical implication.

What can realistically be done depends on the historical moment. The same is true with regard to the agents.

It's not a matter of public relations and rhetorical style but of actions. It's the actions and policies under George W.Bush administration that have left the US government remarkably isolated, feared and often hated to an extent with no historical precedent.

I'm sorry to say it has some historical analogs. It's kind of reminiscent of what happened in Germany in the late Weimar years.

The reaction we should be having to [rich liberals] is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh. There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany.

One of the things I enjoy most about writing historical romance is researching inspiring backgrounds and settings.

Whenever you're trying to do a film in a genuine historical period, you do have to make sure that you get as much historically accurate as you possibly can because there are thousands of people who are wildly interested in the Civil War. If we get anything wrong, there is no doubt that we're going to hear from them.

When you read a history or biography you are entitled to imagine that it is as accurate as the authors can make it. That research has gone into it and we say "This is a history of the civil war, this is a biography of Lincoln" whatever. But you don't make any such supposition when you say "This is a historical novel."

The rise of the West is, quite simply, the pre-eminent historical phenomenon of the second half of the second millennium after Christ.

The notion of dream interpretation far antedates the birth of psychoanalysis, and probably served an important function in most, if not all, historical societies. In having lost this function, modern man has also lost the best part of his nature, which he obliviously passes on to the next generation of dreamers.

Most romances aren't swept aside by big historical events. Most romances in the history of the world fall apart because of other, smaller happenings. History can sometimes be in the background, the thing which instead of rupturing your life merely irritates you by pressing itself now and then into the foreground.

It seems to me that the basic plot of all historical novels is a romance swept aside by history.

Many of the things the slow food people honor were innovations within historical times. Somebody had to be the first European to eat a tomato.

I’ve spent a lot of recreational time walking around historical castles and estates, in Britain and Europe, and so I know what the real thing looks like

In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture.

I regard this conclusion as coming in the same sort of category, of historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, as the death of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70

I accept the historical challenge, and with that, I accept the essentially Christian position that God always has more light to break out of his holy Word.

I'm less influenced by any of [Karl] Marx's ideas today than I've ever been in my life, and most significantly Marx's theory of historical materialism, which I think is virtually a debris of despotism.

Every part of our program of perestroika - and the program as a whole, for that matter - is fully based on the principle of more socialism and more democracy.