Quotes by Simon Schama

Simon Schama

Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king – except in Britain. Here it was parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the cheques. The longer the war went on, the stronger parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and bigger.

Kings

Military

War

At 11, 12 I thought I was clumsy, ugly, a mess, an unappealing person, but I did have the gift of the gab. I had the school record at Haberdashers for consecutive detentions for simply speaking out of turn.

Records

School

Ugly

But it struck me that the extreme violence and cruelty of the English Civil War had gone understated.

Gone

Violence

War

Even for the most excitable preacher, there was nothing inherently sinful about a waffle.

Preacher

Waffles

From the days of the Founding Fathers, right to this (2008) election, how and where America fights to defend its freedom, has been the ultimate question in its politics. The one that triggers rage and sorrow; the one that asks is the price of blood too dear? Or, if it is to stay true to its convictions, does America have no coice but to put its lives on the line?

Father

Fighting

War

Great art has dreadful manners. The greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your reality.

Art

Order

Reality

Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.

Forever

Inability

Shadow

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.

Sorting Out

Stories

Truthful

I felt New York was a big, more stylish, more metropolitan Golders Green. I was thrilled.

Bigs

Green

New York

Jewish history turns out not to be an either/or story – as in, either pure Judaism detached from its surroundings or else assimilation – but rather, for the vast majority, the adventure of living in between.

Adventure

Majority

Stories

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Adventure

America

Animal

Army

Art

Atrocities

Battle

Bigs

Cheating

Civil War

Decay

Depressing

Essence

Faces

Fate

Father

Fighting

Forever

Golf

Gone

Green

Grieving

History

Inability

Kings

Lost

Majority

Men

Military

Moments

New York

Order

Party

Preacher

Progress

Promise

Reality

Records

School

Shadow

Sorting Out

Stories

Truthful

Two

Ugly

Violence

Waffles

War

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Quotes by Simon Schama

Simon Schama

Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king – except in Britain. Here it was parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the cheques. The longer the war went on, the stronger parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and bigger.

At 11, 12 I thought I was clumsy, ugly, a mess, an unappealing person, but I did have the gift of the gab. I had the school record at Haberdashers for consecutive detentions for simply speaking out of turn.

But it struck me that the extreme violence and cruelty of the English Civil War had gone understated.

Even for the most excitable preacher, there was nothing inherently sinful about a waffle.

Great art has dreadful manners. The greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your reality.

Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.

I felt New York was a big, more stylish, more metropolitan Golders Green. I was thrilled.

Jewish history turns out not to be an either/or story – as in, either pure Judaism detached from its surroundings or else assimilation – but rather, for the vast majority, the adventure of living in between.

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