“We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage - almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description. But history is also the narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance.” IfsThinkingHumansWarEnoughMomentsPainGraceCircumstancesBlessedSavedNarrativeDescriptionCatastropheAdequateSequenceOutrageInexplicable Book:Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World Source: Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World
“Wherever they went the Irish brought with them their books, many unseen in Europe for centuries and tied to their waists as signs of triumph, just as Irish heroes had once tied to their waists their enemies' heads. Where they went they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking. In the bays and valleys of their exile, they reestablished literacy and breathed new life into the exhausted literary culture of Europe. And that is how the Irish saved civilization.” BookCultureEnemyCenturyHeroCivilizationSkillsEuropeSavedTriumphValleysTiedExhaustedUnseenNew LifeLiteracyExileLove Of Learning Author:Thomas Cahill
