Prominent Historical Figure Quotes

From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

History is a creative art that makes secret agents in hidden organisations prominent historical figures, at least in the eyes of the masses, in global historical processes.

Be historic.

The publication of the Gospel of Judas within Codex Tchacos represents a significant moment for the study of religion and culture. It is a rare occurrence that a previously unknown gospel manuscript is discovered, particularly one that was mentioned in early Christian sources, and that is precisely what is the case with the Gospel of Judas. The Gospel of Judas can be dated, with some certainty, to around the middle of the second century, or perhaps even a bit before, and the materials included within it are even older. The gospel is thus an early source for our knowledge of an important mystical movement within early Christianity and Judaism, namely the Sethian gnostic school of religious thought. Further, the text provides the opportunity to evaluate, and perhaps reevaluate, the historical role of a figure—Judas Iscariot—who has been much maligned within Christianity and has been a prominent figure in the development of anti-Semitism. All in all, the Gospel of Judas sheds important light on the character of developing Christianity, and reminds us again of the rich diversity of the early church.

Archivist / Circuit Bender For the figure of the artist, technical media has meant nods both toward engineering and the archive, as Huhtamo has noted: “the role of the artist-engineer, which rose into prominence in the 1960s (although its two sides rarely met in one person), has at least partly been supplanted by that of the artist-archaeologist.”23 Yet methodologies of reuse, hardware hacking, and circuit bending are becoming increasingly central in this context as well. Bending or repurposing the archive of media history strongly relates to the pioneering works of artists such as Paul DeMarinis, Zoe Beloff, or Gebhard Sengmüller—where a variety of old media technologies have been modified and repurposed to create pseudo-historical objects from a speculative future.

Two historical figures play prominent roles in this book: a pair of priests who lived centuries apart but who were tied together by fate. During the seventeenth century, Father Athanasius Kircher was known as the Leonardo da Vinci of the Jesuit Order.

Bergman to work as much as he did, so perhaps we should be thankful that Bergman chose to eat cottage cheese and strawberry jam every lunchtime!

MEN AND WOMEN who did almost nothing for a large part of the year tend not to figure prominently in history books. Studies and museums naturally highlight enterprise and undervalue the art of remaining idle for months on end.

London’s most famous burial ground, Highgate Cemetery, is renowned for its many famous permanent residents—such as Karl Marx and George Eliot—and for its elaborate nineteenth-century tombstones. Opened in 1839 to deal with a shortage of burial plots in the city, Highgate Cemetery is an atmospheric place that attracts many visitors for its peaceful greenery, its ornate statues of weeping angels, and its busts of prominent historical figures. In the cemetery, one can see foxes darting amidst the bushes and hear lively birdsong in the branches of shady trees.

Thanks again to Alan Butler's work, this time I was able to inspect the work of Hesiod in connection with the Phaistos Disc for being calendrical, and now I view it through the lens of ancient Egypt by projecting it directly onto the circular zodiac of Dendera. Hesiod has used three different references to the days in his work: (the first ..); (the middle ..); and (.. of the month). With this system which he had used, I linked the "first" references to the zodiac's portals on the East; the "middle" references to the Fullmoon days of the month which are located on the zodiac's western portals; and the "of the month" references to the zodiac's days which are located right after passing by and finishing the rotation beyond the eastern portals. Therefore, Hesiod has recognized Egypt's month's count of days (And tell your slaves the thirtieth is the month's best-suited day). He has also explicitly identified the beginning of the Equinox and Solstice portals on the zodiac based on the zodiac's anticlockwise orientation while emphasizing the more prominent role of the Summer Solstice in the calendar system (The first and fourth and seventh days are holy days to men, the eighth and ninth as well). Hesiod has also issued a warning against, Apophis, the snake demon (But shun the fifth day, fifth days are both difficult and dread). Hesiod has recognized Egypt's royal-cosmic copulation event that takes place at the culmination of the Summer Solstice (The first ninth, though, for human beings, is harmless, quite benign for planting and for being born; indeed, it's very fine For men and women both; this day is never bad all through) Hesiod has identified the exact position of the newly born infant boy on the zodiac (For planting vines the middle sixth is uncongenial but good for the birth of males) and also established the Minoan bull's head rhyton connection with Egypt (The middle fourth, which is a day to soothe and gently tame the sheep and curved-horned), (Open a jar on the middle fourth),(And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Hesiod gave Osiris' role in the ancient Egyptian agrarian Theology to men (two Days of the waxing month stand out for tasks men have to do, the eleventh and the twelfth) and pointed out the right location of the boar on the zodiac (Geld your boar on the eighth of the month) and counted on top of these days the days of the mule which comes afterward (on the twelfth day of the month [geld] the long-laboring mule) - since the reference to the mule in the historical text comes right after that of the boar's and both are grouped together conceptually with the act of gelding. He has also identified the role of Isis for resurrecting Osiris after the Summer Solstice event (On the fourth day of the month bring back a wife to your abode) and even referred to the two female figures on the zodiac and identified them as, Demeter and Persephone, the two mythical Greek queens (Upon the middle seventh throw Demeter's holy grain) where we see them along with the reference to Poseidon (i.e. fishes and water) right next to them as the account exists in the Greek mythology. Even more, Hesiod knows when the sequence of the boats' appearances begins on the zodiac (And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Astonishingly enough, he mentions the solar eclipse when the Moon fully blocks the Sun (the third ninth's best of all, though this is known by few) and also glorifies sunrise and warns from sunset on that same day (Again, few know the after-twentieth day of the month is best ..) and identifies the event's dangerous location on the west (.. at dawn and that it worsens when the sun sinks in the west).

The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary. Among intelligent Communists there is an underground legend to the effect that although the Russian government is obliged now to deal in lying propaganda, frame-up trials, and so forth, it is secretly recording the true facts and will publish them at some future time. We can, I believe, be quite certain that this is not the case, because the mentality implied by such an action is that of a liberal historian who believes that the past cannot be altered and that a correct knowledge of history is valuable as a matter of course. From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth. The friends of totalitarianism in this country usually tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big lie is no worse than a little lie. It is pointed out that all historical records are biased and inaccurate, or on the other hand, that modern physics has proven that what seems to us the real world is an illusion, so that to believe in the evidence of one’s senses is simply vulgar philistinism. A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist.

Even more threatening to Christian assumptions than the Qur’an’s flat denial that Jesus had been crucified, however, was the imperious, not to say terrifying, tone of authority with which it did so. Very little in either the Old or the New Testament could compare. For all the reverence with which Christians regarded their scripture, and for all that they believed it illumined by the flame of the Holy Spirit, they perfectly accepted that most of it, including the Gospels themselves, had been authored by mortals. Only the covenant on the tablets of stone, given to Moses amid fire and smoke on the summit of Sinai, ‘and written with the finger of God’,13 owed nothing to human mediation. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that Moses, of all the figures in the Old and New Testaments, should have featured most prominently in the Qur’an. He was mentioned 137 times in all. Many of the words attributed to him had served as a direct inspiration to Muhammad’s own followers. ‘My people! Enter the Holy Land which God has prescribed for you!’14 The Arab conquerors, in the first decades of their empire, had pointedly referred to themselves as muhajirun: ‘those who have undertaken an exodus’. A hundred years on from Muhammad’s death, when the first attempts were made by Muslim scholars to write his biography, the model that they instinctively reached for was that of Moses. The age at which the Prophet had received his first revelation from God; the flight of his followers from a land of idols; the way in which—directly contradicting the news brought to Carthage in 634—he was said to have died before entering the Holy Land: all these elements echoed the life of the Jews’ most God-favoured prophet.15 So brilliantly, indeed, did Muslim biographers paint from the palette of traditions told about Moses that the fading outlines of the historical Muhammad were quite lost beneath their brushstrokes. Last and most blessed of the prophets sent by God to set humanity on the straight path, there was only the one predecessor to whom he could properly be compared. ‘There has come to him the greatest Law that came to Moses; surely he is the prophet of this people.’16