A garland of quotations XXXVI
Culled from the finest scholar squirrels in literary history, and re-woven every Monday
(If you find these quotes compelling, please check out my more conventional prose narratives, such as blog-namesake alternate history collection Impossible Histories, kid-friendly edumicational wizard school guide book (and guide to sorcerers of myth and legend) Apprentice Academy: Sorcerers, or highbrow/lowbrow novel Sudden Glory, all released this past year.)
Not a single great ruler in history can be absolved by a judge who fixes his eye inexorably on one or two unjustifiable acts. Bruce the deliverer of Scotland, Maurice the deliverer of Germany, William the deliverer of Holland, his great descendant the deliverer of England, Murray the good regent, Cosmo the father of his country, Henry the Fourth of France, Peter the Great of Russia, how would the best of them pass such a scrutiny? History takes wider views; and the best tribunal for great political cases is the tribunal which anticipates the verdict of history.
•Lord Macaulay, “Clive” (1840).
It bounced back and forth in my head until I realized I couldn’t judge it. It was too big.
He was too big.
•Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns #2 (1986).
And this isn’t me saying bad things about Eddie: this is the deep and resonant voice of History itself saying bad things about Eddie.
•Alan Moore, “Correspondence: From Hell” (1997).
There was a man sittin’ down readin’ a history of Jesse James’ life
and the wind blew his door open and he died from fright.
•“Jesse James,” from Bruce Jackson, ed., Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me (1974).
All Histories afford not so many examples, either of cunning and subtile devises, or of forcible and violent actions for the safeguard of life, as for destroying.
•John Donne, Biathanatos (1608).
In the library of the castle I found a Latin book—Suetonius, I believe—full of accounts of the cruelties of the Roman Emperors. I read the charming history of Tiberius, Caracalla, and other Cæsars, and the pleasure they took in watching the agonies of tortured children. Thereupon I resolved to imitate and surpass these same Cæsars, and that very night I began to do so.
•Gilles de Laval, trial transcript (1440).
Physical scourges and the calamities of human nature rendered society necessary. Society has added to natural misfortunes. The drawbacks of society have made government necessary, and government adds to society’s misfortunes. There is the history of human nature in a nutshell.
•Nicholas Chamfort, The Cynic's Breviary (coll. 1902).
…that universal gangrene, History.
•E.M. Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations (1987).
So there actually existed a second history, a history parallel to the one which the liceo had administered to us from on high?
•Primo Levy, The Periodic Table (1975).
Life is a commentary of something else we cannot reach, which is there within reach of the leap we will not take. ¶Life, a ballet based upon a historical theme, a story based upon a deed that once had been alive, a deed that had lived based upon a real deed.
•Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch (1963).
I have not written all this to complain: I have simply written the truth. I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself: I have simply set down exactly what happened. Since I have made it a point in this history to write the truth of every matter and to set down no more than the reality of every event, as a consequence I have reported every good and evil I have seen of father and brother and set down the actuality of every fault and virtue of relative and stranger. May the reader excuse me; may the listener not take me to task.
•Babur, Baburnama (1530).
References: Moore: Cerebus #217 (4/97); Laval: Sabine Baring-Gould, The Book of Were-Wolves (1865); Babur: op. cit.; some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.