Alexa Hirschfeld Quotes

I was absolutely delighted that those shows have been preserved.

Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity. the unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.

I really don’t make history; I preserve it.

If there was a day that history was not recorded, then the history of one hundred days would be in peril.

I know that collector types can be a pain in the neck and seem perpetually frozen in time - or at least in their parents' basement - but someone has to look out for the past, lest it slip away forever.

The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.

I realized the importance of archiving. So I save key pieces from my collections, as well as any red-carpet things that become iconic. I always ask for that stuff back. I'm like, "It's going in my archives."

It may not be art, but it is history.

History depends always upon what, for one reason or another, has survived from earlier periods, particularly upon what was written down or pictured.

The statues are no big issue. They are only objects made of mud or stone.

The rites and festivals of each nation shall remain undisturbed and shall continue as before because they were given by the people of old times as useful and necessary for the good of men

Our ancient historical monuments are national property and ought no longer to be left to the mercy of the many and variable ideas of ecclesiastical propriety that may at any time be prevalent among us

… history is that which transforms documents into monuments

The example which Massachusetts and New England offer in the retention of longstanding custom should be given very careful consideration before ruthlessly permitting it to be sacrificed for mercenary considerations.

Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.

You re being handed a national treasure. Your main responsibility is that whenever you may leave it, it still remains a national treasure.

That's what I want to do, ultimately: figure out a way to get the world engaged with discovery and protecting these ancient sites.

I like places that have history in the sense of - you feel responsible to it.

I just happen to be from the generation that, like a lot of my older friends, started out writing letters.

I'm in a museum. I'm a relic.

In archaeology, context is everything. Objects allow us to reconstruct the past. Taking artifacts from a temple or an ancient private house is like emptying out a time capsule.

Ancient monuments 300 to 1000-plus years old are never 'renovated,' only 'restored,' a distinction that escapes the babus.

Most time capsules, when they're unearthed, are really awful. There's nothing good in them.

I tend to believe that film can try to save what still can be saved, in terms of our histories, our memories. Because a lot of things are disappearing very quickly, things are changing. We are living in very quick times, and we have a new generation who basically know nothing about events 30 years ago.

Architecture is a special kind of career that showcases the accumulations of culture, time, and history.