Levi Strauss Quotes

History is simply man’s desperate bid to give substance to his most visionary dreams.

A collection that embraces the whole world allows you to consider the whole world. That is what an institution such as the British Museum is for.

I think that America has an obsession with history, really.

History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.

With each passing decade, history becomes less real for us, less immediate and essential to our way of life, and so, like 'green' nature, more of a commodity or an advertising gimmick.

The most basic task of any museum must be the protection of works of cultural significance entrusted to its care for the edification and pleasure of future generations.

Every museum is full of nice things. That's the opposite of before. It was important things or serious things. Now we have interesting things.

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

I am intrigued by inanimate objects. They're a piece of history, someone's statement and ideas of life.

A museum is like a valuing machine. Museums and the industrial society started at the same moment, and they're really tied into each other. They've been all about displaying objects and the kind of wealth that can be derived from objects and promoting that point.

Museums, I love museums.

It is the recognition of history as a record of human experience which has inevitably resulted in the inclusion of this conquest of civilization within the framework of a complete human history.

I love getting on the subway because you get on the car, and you see the entire human race represented in any given subway car.

Culture relates to objects and is a phenomenon of the world; entertainment relates to people and is a phenomenon of life.

In museums and palaces we are alternate radicals and conservatives.

I love California. It has such a strong contribution to the history of culture, and popular culture. For better and worse, of course. Even the worst can be interesting to some degree sometimes for somebody creative.

World history is the history of the great cultures.

Even historians with knowledge of the event, and with the materials before them on which to form a judgment, see but little way into the causes and consequences of the great events in human history.

What history is about is human beings.

… history is that which transforms documents into monuments

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

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

All over the world, we're finding out that, you know, whether it's Egypt or Syria or Central America, what satellites are showing is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of previously unknown settlements all over the world, and what archaeology does, it helps us to understand this common humanity that we have.

As artists, our primary function is not to be educators - but we are at a time in history, where for us, our history needs to give context for stories that we hope to tell down the road.