#tory

Only the foolish, blinded by language's conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it's melancholy rim, green in it's envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it's greatest rages, black. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#short-stories #short-story

Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history’s illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities. ↗

— Lauren Willig

#history #historical

A little truth seasons a lie like salt. ↗

— Jacqueline Carey

#story #truth #historical

Mister Cameron - I have read the unexpurgated Ovid, the love poems of Sappho, the Decameron in the original, and a great many texts in Greek and Latin histories that were not though fit for proper gentlemen to read, much less proper ladies. I know in precise detail what Caligula did to, and with, his sisters, and I can quote it to you in Latin or in my own translation if you wish. I am interested in historical truth, and truth in history is often unpleasant and distasteful to those of fine sensibility. I frankly doubt that you will produce anything to shock me. ↗

— Mercedes Lackey

#history #humor #latin #humor

What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#humanity #power #sociology #historical

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#history #oscar-wilde #historical

History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past. ↗

— Jennifer Donnelly

#history #revolution

By proof we feel Our power sufficient to disturb his Heav'n, And with perpetual inrodes to alarm, Though inaccessible, his fatal Throne: Which if not Victory is yet Revenge. ↗

— John Milton

#victory #revenge

Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives. ↗

— Criss Jami

#battle #bias #combat #discernment #disputes

Hands that never touch. Lips that never meet. The Almost Lovers, never to be. ↗

— Rae Hachton

#heartbreak #lament #love #lovers-love-story #lovers-sadness