#histories

I don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting. ↗

— Bill Bryson

#book #dull #enjoy #generally #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

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

— Alexander Pope

#examples #fidelity #friends #full #histories

Deconstructing the concept of race not only conflicts with people's tendency to classify and build family histories according to common descent but also ignores the work of biologists studying non-human species. ↗

— J. Philippe Rushton

#also #biologists #build #classify #common

Free nations with different histories, economies and a vast amount of stubborn pride will never achieve complete agreement, even when they desire the same objectives. ↗

— Arthur Hays Sulzberger

#agreement #amount #complete #desire #different

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

But whatsoever betide, let us be ever venturesome; for nought comes of itself, and all men's gains are the fruit of adventure. ↗

— Herodotus of Halicarnassus

#men

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

— A.S. Byatt

#religion

I don't chart out the life histories of the people I play. If I did, I'd be in trouble. I work with my heart and my head, and naturally emotions follow. ↗

— Ernest Borgnine

#did #emotions #follow #head #heart

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