When I was in school I studied biology. I learned that in making their experiments scientists will take some group--bacteria, mice, people--and subject that group to certain conditions. They compare the results with a second group which has not been disturbed. This second group is called the control group. It is the control group which enables the scientist gauge the effect of his experiment. To judge the significance of what has occurred. In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who o not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God--who knows all that can be known--seems powerless to change.
Cormac McCarthyTags: history
History has rewritten itself so many times I'm not really sure how it was to begin with -- it's a bit like trying to guess the original color of a wall when it's been repainted eight times.
Jasper FfordeIn history, as elsewhere, fools rush in, and the angels may perhaps be forgiven if rather than tread in those treacherous paths they tread upon the fools instead.
G.R. EltonI tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say..." They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision..." They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold..." But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe.
Sheri S. TepperTags: truth history belief religion lessons prophecies
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Thomas PaineTags: history revolution
When he, whoever of the gods it was, had thus arranged in order and resolved that chaotic mass, and reduced it, thus resolved, to cosmic parts, he first moulded the Earth into the form of a mighty ball so that it might be of like form on every side … And, that no region might be without its own forms of animate life, the stars and divine forms occupied the floor of heaven, the sea fell to the shining fishes for their home, Earth received the beasts, and the mobile air the birds … Then Man was born:… though all other animals are prone, and fix their gaze upon the earth, he gave to Man an uplifted face and bade him stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven.
OvidTags: history literature myth creation mythology roman creation-myth
No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.
Roger ZelaznyTags: words reality buddhism history humanity story memory narrative semiotics truthful
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
L.P. HartleyYankee Stadium, it’s like everything else in this country. In Europe, they save all their old buildings for history. Here, we just tear them all down.
Bob FellerWhatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in this doctrine, she will begin to tell you, eagerly, the story of her life.
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