William Harvey Quotes

Christianity is the very root and foundation of Western civilization.

I'm a traditionalist.

I think the Lower East Side inspires me. That whole neighborhood, a lot of the people that I worked with, seeing what we've gone through in life, being given an opportunity to understand who I am; my identity, my culture, and my roots.

Egypt is the most populous Arab nation, the seat of Sunni Islamic doctrine, and has tremendous political, religious and social influence on the rest of the region. For better or worse, it will lead the rest of the Middle East by example. So goes Egypt, so goes the region.

My family has been in New Orleans longer than the American flag has flown over the city.

Where is the society that does not struggle along under the dead weight of tradition and law inherited from its grandfathers.

History is on every occasion the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

There is beauty in our roots. Sometimes we think our roots are shameful, and people tell you that you're no good or your ancestors are no good or that you come from a neighborhood of no hope and terrible crime. But it's about the beauty of those places, and I carry that with me.

I believe history and tradition is something solid and something we can rest on. I am not crazy about putting new spices in chocolate.

Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?

Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.

I love how pop culture shapes a generation. The trends, fashion and events all play a key part in how we live our present lives, and will mark how we will be remembered in the future.

The fact that Americans drag around the world by the busloads to glimpse the past probably has something to do with the youth of our country. We revere anything older than George Burns.

(Tradition) is the democracy of the dead.

Some say the antique syndrome surfaced to offset the newness of the land, the homes, and the settlers. Some say the interest was initiated by a desire to return to the roots of yesterday. I contend the entire movement to acquire antiques was born out of sheer respect of things that lasted longer than fifteen minutes.

Values, both those that we approve and those that we don't, have roots as deep as creosote rings, and live as long and grow as slowly

Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something. There is a certain concern for history but it’s not very deep. I understand that time has changed, we have evolved. But I don’t want to forget the beginning. A lasting architecture has to have roots.

We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.

Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.

After I am dead I would like people to say: 'Beuys understood the historical situation. He altered the course of events'. I hope in the right direction.

History can't be left to fend for itself. For when it comes to history and beliefs and values, we turn our future on the lathe of the past.

History is the memory of time, the life of the dead and the happiness of the living.