Archive for the 'history' Category

Quotidienne/Daily
p. 53
Why do some people, including myself, enjoy in certain novels, biographies, and historical works the representation of the “daily life’ of an epoch, of a character? Why this curiosity about petty details: schedules, habits, meals, lodging, clothing, etc.? Is it the hallucinatory relish of “reality” (the very materiality of “that once existed”)? And is [...]


“Revolution confirms Superstition, by offering sacrifice.”
XXXII, My heart laid bare
“In order that the law of Progress could exist each man would have to be willing to enforce it; for it is only when every individual has made up his mind to move forward that humanity will be in a state of progress. This hypothesis may [...]


p. 15
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.
p. 15-16
In like manner a beginner who has learnt a new language always translates it back into his mother [...]