#antiquity

[O]ver the years I travelled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying--in the supermarket, these old ladies won't get out of my way--but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances. ↗

— Donald Hall

#aliens #antiquity #extraterrestrials #old-age #other

A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery. ↗

— Thomas Fuller

#inclines #little #man #popery #skill

Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine. ↗

— Pierre Loti

#astonishment #egypt #exercised #fascination #hesitation

Such discoveries have led me, and other geologists, to reconsider the evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of the high antiquity of Man. ↗

— Charles Lyell

#brought #caves #derived #discoveries #evidence

We are so fortunate, as Australians, to have among us the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Cultures that link our nation with deepest antiquity. We have Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley that is as ancient as the great Palaeolithic cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux in Europe. ↗

— Kevin Rudd

#among #ancient #antiquity #art #australians

This freedom of political discussion on the highest level is something which Western civilization has in common with that of classical antiquity, but with no other. ↗

— Christopher Dawson

#civilization #classical #common #discussion #freedom

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#age #antiquity #censure #eminent #escaping

The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth. ↗

— Pierre Bayle

#antiquity #assurance #general #opinion #truth

The year 2008 was a reminder to those who had forgotten that there is such a thing as history and that the cycle of famine and feast in commerce, first identified in antiquity and well understood in the Middle Ages, was not suddenly abolished in modern times. ↗

— James Buchan

#antiquity #commerce #cycle #famine #feast

I have often said that just as the French revolution, for instance, understood itself through antiquity, I think our time can be understood through the French revolution. It is quite a natural process to use other times to understand your own time. ↗

— Ian Hamilton Finlay

#french #french revolution #i #i think #instance