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Quote by Johan Huizinga

“When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness which joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child”

Quote by Johan Huizinga

Author

Dutch historian known for his research in cultural and art history. Johan Huizinga was born on December 7, 1872, and died on February 1, 1945. His works have had a profound impact on subsequent historical and sociological studies. more

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“There are no instances known to me of cultures having forsaken Truth or renounced the understanding in its widest sense.”

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“A crude mind could easily think: something is valid, therefore it is true.”

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“Life is made too easy. Mankind's moral fibre is giving way under the softening influence of luxury.”

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“The new knowledge has not yet settled in culture. It has not yet been integrated in a new cosmic conception.”

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“Science, unguided by a higher abstract principle, freely hands over its secrets to a vastly developed and commercially inspired technology, and the latter, even less restrained by a supreme culture saving principle, with the means of science creates all the instruments of power demanded from it by the organization of Might.”

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“Culture means control over nature.”

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“It is an evil world. The fires of hatred and violence burn fiercely. Evil is powerful, the devil covers a darkened earth with hisblack wings. And soon the end of the world is expected. But mankind does not repent, the church struggles, and the preachers and poets warn and lament in vain.”

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“Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and supersededby elements of lower quality.”

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“Culture requires in the first place a certain balance of material and spiritual values.”

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“Today the average inhabitant of the western hemisphere knows a little of everything. He has the newspaper on his breakfast table and wireless within reach. For the evening there is the film, cards, or a meeting to complete a day spent in the office or factory where nothing that is essential has been learnt. With slight variation this picture of a low cultural average holds good over the entire range from factory-hand of clerk to manager or director. Only the personal will to culture, in whatever field and however pursued raises modern man above this level.”