Richard Greenberg Quotes

The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects - making it possible... to see a new beauty in what is vanishing.

All states need to hallow themselves with the dignity of the past.

… the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically.

India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.

I only like artists older than myself. Time is so important. It's always been the same way, I guess.

Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Immunity to obsolescence is the only obsolescent-immune conceit of the past millennium.

I think people in general have neglected to learn about history.

Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened.

The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.

I spent most of the '60s, when I was starting to try to write novels, living and working in Greece and Turkey. These are countries where the ancient past is interfused with the daily present, and I remember being struck with wonder at the constant sense of continuity and connection, the reminders that lie in wait for you at every turn.

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

The illusion is that most of my work is simply about past events: a point in history and nothing else.

A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies - all of the things that quite literally make us who we are.

I'm always happy to be a part of history. When you're a part of history, you live forever. 'The T.A.M.I. Show' will live forever because now it's brand new. We did that 40-odd years ago, and people are really starting to see it now. I was a part of history when I recorded that show.

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

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.

Rome is one enormous mausoleum. There, the Past lies visibly stretched upon his bier. There is no today or tomorrow in Rome; it is perpetual yesterday.

We can't let the past be forgotten.

Most national holidays in most countries rest on selective memories of the past.

If we do not, as historians, write the history of great events as well as the small stories that make up the past, others will, and they will not necessarily do it well.

We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison.