Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented society, and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.
A labyrinth is a symbolic journey . . . but it is a map we can really walk on, blurring the difference between map and world.
Americans worship technology. It's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist.
A lone walker is both present and detached, more than an audience but less than a participant. Walking assuages or legitimizes this alienation.
It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.
there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.
When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, Leo Gursky is survived by an apartment full of shit
The real significance of Magellan's voyage was not that it was the first to circumnavigate the planet, but that it was the first to realize just how big that planet was.
I though, So this is how they send the angel. Stalled at the age when she loved you most.
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
Maybe Grodzenski was showing me, with his quiet pride, the reason he hummed a little while he worked.
It is ashamed that history isolates things that are common to a large populace, but families don’t disperse generational history to prevent their descendants from falling in the same traps as they had.
History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme
Active people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
I think sometimes I guess you see records, say you want to get there and use that as motivation. In a way, it's kind of cool if there is a possibility to rewrite history and be up there with the greats of Olympic history.
Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of oth...
The vital thing for me is to integrate the history from above with the history from below because only in that way can you show the true consequences of the decisions of Hitler or Stalin or whomever on the ordinary civilians caught up in the battle.
A western audience might not appreciate 'Chanakya's Chant' because of its dependence on history and ancient statecraft. My book is a modern-day thriller that draws on a bedrock of history. My primary object is to entertain, not educate.
After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon's tapes.
The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.
Barcelona is a very old city in which you can feel the weight of history; it is haunted by history. You cannot walk around it without perceiving it.
