Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, western, civilization and/or nations:
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the Grand Climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: “Home is home, be it never so homely.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)