Speke/history

Famous quotes containing the words speke and/or history:

“Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, were right ynogh to me
To speke of wo that is in mariage.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)

“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)