“British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question.” TryingYearsAnswersHistoryChangedHumourWarmBritishMinistersPrimePrime MinisterGladstone Author:W. C. Sellar
“How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.” WorldLightPurposeAnswersHistoryDarknessIgnoranceTreatedWorld HistoryAntiquityLight Of The World Book:Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution Source: Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men's reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.” ThinkingMenNeedsArtTodayPastEasyAnswersHistoryGoneRecordsWrittenGenerationsDangerScaryDrivenBlockIdiotReasoningDelusionExceptionalContinuityRiddleQuicksandLifelinesGood Thinking Book:Occasions and protests Source: Occasions and protests
“To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.” WorldHas BeensIdeasWarCoursesFoundLostAnswersDealsHistoryMilitaryGreatnessFailureExcellenceWar Of The WorldsLiberalismWorld War IiWorld War IJungleFrontiersCubaBerlinNew DealGreat SocietyNew FrontiersIndochina Author:George McGovern
“History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.” AnswersHistoryStudySociologyAnthropology Author:W. H. Auden