The next worse thing to a battle lost is a battle won. Simon Schama More Quotes by Simon Schama More Quotes From Simon Schama By the end of the nineteenth century, the stereotype of the ugly American - voracious, preachy, mercenary, and bombastically chauvinist - was firmly in place in Europe. Simon Schama americanendplaceugly I am strongly of the opinion that chronology is very important. The great arc of time is what children are wired for. Simon Schama i-amgreattimechildren History is admirably dangerous. It is not the soft option. Teachers need to be grown up and brave. Sensitivity is fine, but it stops at the door of honest narrative. Simon Schama doorteachersbravehistory In Mesopotamia or Egypt, for example, the monarch had a god-like religious status. But this is not the case in Judaism. So that notion that religion can go on, when all the markers of power and trappings of monarchy disappear, ultimately serves the endurance of Judaism very well. Simon Schama goendurancepowerreligion History gives you insight of the same quality of truth as poetry or philosophy or a novel. Simon Schama youqualitytruthhistory I understood when I was quite small that there were two special things about the Jews. That we'd endured for over 3,000 years despite everything that had been thrown at us, and that we had an extraordinarily dramatic story to tell. Simon Schama storysmalleverythingspecial It's not right to think about all of Jewish-German history as shrouded by the smoke of the crematorium. Simon Schama rightthinksmokehistory Jews can live their own life as Jews and yet be part of a different country. Simon Schama liveownlifecountry The notion that religion can actually be something... attached to progressivism seems so bizarre. But all you have to say is that Abolition wouldn't have happened without it. The way in which African Americans managed to achieve a degree of self-determination was through the church. Simon Schama youchurchwayreligion I would want the British reader to feel that religion in America isn't an absurd thing - a sign of a pin head athwart a gigantic body. Simon Schama feelbodywantreligion In the early nineteenth century, with Enlightenment optimism soured by years of war and revolution, critics were skeptical of America's naive faith that it had reinvented politics. Simon Schama revolutionpoliticsfaithwar The British who arrived in the United States in the eighteen-thirties and forties had imagined the young republic as a wide-eyed adolescent, socially ungainly and politically gauche, but with some hint of promise. Simon Schama somewhoyoungpromise The default mode of modern writing about art is to despise any notion of singularity as so much overheated genius-fetishism. Simon Schama aboutmodernwritingart Sculptures created from found materials like ice and thorns, driftwood, and even bleached kangaroo bones all presuppose that artistic design will yield to the cycles of time and climate, whether over an hour or a decade. Simon Schama decadewilldesigntime I have this magpie instinct for the next glittering object. There are one or two things I know I can't write about, though: DIY, cricket, automobile repair. I could study it for a lifetime and not produce a word on the carburettor. Simon Schama thingsknowcricketstudy I am somebody who has never been able to give up '60s habits. I am the inevitable old codger on the dance floor. Simon Schama oldi-amneverdance I did an audiobook for 'Rough Crossings,' which I thought was one of the best books I had published. But it was an absolute embarrassment to read it. All these horrible mucked-up bits of syntax, over-the-top adjectives. I found myself editing it while reading. Alert listeners will notice the difference. Simon Schama bestthoughtmyselfreading I find it very hard to write about Jewish history. Simon Schama writefindhardhistory
