Corpse/history

Famous quotes containing the words corpse and/or history:

    Light
    Flashed from his matted head and marble feet,
    He grappled at the net
    With the coiled, hurdling muscles of his thighs:
    The corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,
    Robert Lowell (1917–1977)

    Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)