#histories

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. ↗

— Soren Kierkegaard

#concepts #histories #homesickness #incapable #individuals

I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.) ↗

— A.S. Byatt

#religion

There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale. ↗

— Ralph Ellison

#arrive #bright #case #condition #fairy

Recounting their histories, people often sound like interested bystanders to their own lives. ↗

— Hugh Mackay

#interested #like #lives #often #own

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. ↗

— Karl Popper

#elevated #histories #history #human #human life

There have been only rare moments in history where individual histories were able to run their course without wars or revolutions. ↗

— Raymond Queneau

#been #course #histories #history #individual

What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted. ↗

— Oliver Cromwell

#god #himself #histories #our #planted

My time as editor has been overlapped by a crisis - a prolonged, labyrinthine, tragic, seemingly non-ending crisis - that involves the prehistory of 9/11, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, fraught histories between the United States and almost everyone. ↗

— David Remnick

#almost #been #between #crisis #editor

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends. ↗

— Alexander Pope

#examples #fidelity #friends #full #histories

Take your place, then. Look at what happened from every side and consider all the other ways it could have gone. Consider, even, an Africa unconquered altogether. Imagine those first Portuguese adventurers approaching the shore, spying on the jungle’s edge through their fitted brass lenses. Imagine that by some miracle of dread or reverence they lowered their spyglasses, turned, set their riggings, sailed on. Imagine all who came after doing the same. What would that Africa be now? All I can think of is the other okapi, the one they used to believe in. A unicorn that could look you in the eye. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#alternative-histories #freedom #freedom