Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Fifty years would seem to be time enough to prepare a definitive history of the Second World War. In an age of instant data-gathering, one might think that the historians could have arrived at a consensus for interpreting the main events of the war. In reality, no such consensus exists. "

Related Quotes:

" Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe. "

Norman Davies

Future

Independent

Project

" In the long run, Europe will certainly move toward unification. But it will be a process of push and pull, and there will be resistance. "

" Young people have to learn in a cocoon filled with false optimism. Unlike their parents and grandparents, they grow up with very little sense of the pitiless passage of time. "

" In the 21st century, there will probably be a reflex against the disintegration of traditional European culture. What started as a reaction will come full circle, and there will be a return to the roots. "

" The shores of the Black Sea lend themselves to the literary genre that may be classified as 'cultural pilgrimage,' which is not just a higher form of travel writing but which has the further mission of reporting on present conditions and supplying neglected knowledge. "

" I happen to belong to that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent. "

" I find myself sick to death, tired of arguing about details with people who don't know basic facts. "

" In the years of the Red Terror that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, the voice of dissent was stifled by universal denunciations, house searches, and preventive arrests. "

" Traditionally, historians thought in terms of invasions: the Celts took over the islands, then the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons. It now seems much more likely that the resident population doesn't change as much as thought. The people stay put but are reculturalized by some new dominant culture. "

" It's unimaginable to meet a Pole or a German who does not know about the history of their country. But lots of English people don't know the difference between Britain and England. "

" Historical change is like an avalanche. The starting point is a snow-covered mountainside that looks solid. All changes take place under the surface and are rather invisible. "

" Every austerity measure that Cameron and George Osborne make is being presented in Scotland as the English starving us. "

Norman Davies

Scotland

English

" Law and Justice are the most vindictive gang in Europe. "

" It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality. "

" Why are some things remembered and others forgotten? That is the theme I want to pursue about the Second World War. "

" None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. "

" It's our vanity that makes us think that what forms part of our world today must be stable and secure. "

Norman Davies

Secure

Vanity

" The last years of fading communism provided an ideal environment for Poland's Catholic Church, which acted as an umbrella for dissenters of all sorts. "

" The United Kingdom is not, and never has been, a nation state. "

" Under Lenin, hardly less than under Stalin, historians harbored critical opinions at their peril. The writing, let alone the publication, of political diaries was virtually impossible. "

" There is history in condoms, there is history in lampshades, there is history in everything. "

Norman Davies

Everything

History

" The Law and Justice government does not want a bunch of foreign historians to decide what goes on in 'their' museum. "

" One might have thought that 70 years was time enough to work out what really happened in 1939. It isn't the case. Misunderstandings and misinformation abound. "

" All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced. "

" So long as classical education and classical prejudices prevailed, educated Englishmen inevitably saw ancient Britain as an alien land. "

" One of the problems in the Ukrainian crisis is that very few Westerners know their history, or if they know it, what they learn is what we call the Russian version of history. "

" All political institutions will end sooner or later. The question is when and how. "

" Capacity of human societies both to absorb and to discard cultures is much underestimated. "

" I always needle a bit when people say I'm a champion of the Poles, because I've always had a very multinational view of Poland. "

" Winners of wars get a standing start in the post-war stakes of remembrance. "