Historical Context Quotes

• Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context.

  Josh McDowell

  Light, Historical, Documents

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• The most advanced, creative and original thinking is always a product of historical context and the influences of previous geniuses, mentors, and collaborators on the mind of the originator.

  Michael J. Gelb

  Thinking, Creative, Historical

  Michael J. Gelb (2009). “Discover Your Genius: How to Think Like History's Ten Most Revolutionary Minds”, p.7, Harper Collins

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• The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing. As Einstein put it, 'The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.'

  David Brooks

  Technology, Thinking, Roots

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• Often the Jesus-focused churches are leaning towards a 'social gospel' interpretation of the kingdom, and the 'Paul' churches are talking about being saved from sin and going to heaven. But when we understand both Jesus and Paul in their historical contexts within the first-century Jewish world, the issues become both more complex and ultimately (I believe) more clear.

  N. T. Wright

  Jesus, Believe, Talking

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• It's very important to always put things in their historical contexts. It teaches important lessons about the country in question.

  Warren Christopher

  Country, Historical, Important

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• The field of the novel is very rich. If you're a composer, you're well aware of the history of composition, and you are trying to make your music part of that history. You're not ahistorical. In the same way, I think, if you write now, you are writing in the historical context of what the novel has been and what possibilities it has revealed.

  Salman Rushdie

  Writing, Thinking, Historical

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• The Bible itself is a book that constantly must be wrestled with and re-interpreted. ... Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader's bias and current realities. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says.

  Rob Bell

  Book, Reality, Historical

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• I've always felt that the poems I've written which have historical context are hopefully not just simply plucking something out of history and saying great, let's write about that. In every case what has happened is that I've become fascinated or haunted by something and couldn't shake it.

  Rita Dove

  Writing, Hopefully Not, Historical

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com. November 19, 2009.

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• Poetry is a river; many voices travel in it; poem after poem moves along in the exciting crests and falls of the river waves. None is timeless; each arrives in an historical context; almost everything, in the end, passes. But the desire to make a poem, and the world's willingness to receive it--indeed the world's need of it--these never pass.

  Mary Oliver

  Moving, Fall, Voice

  Mary Oliver (1994). “A Poetry Handbook”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When people like Glenn Beck throw around the word Nazi without taking that kind of care, they are engaging in demagoguery. I am doing it with a concrete footnoted historical context.

  Naomi Wolf

  People, Historical, Care

  "NEWS & POLITICS Naomi Wolf Thinks the Tea Parties Help Fight Fascism -- Is She Onto Something or in Fantasy Land?". Interview with Justine Sharrock, www.alternet.org. March 29, 2010.

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• I was trained as a philosopher never to put philosophers and their ideas into historical contexts, since historical context has nothing to do with the validity of the philosopher's positions. I agree that assessing validity and contextualizing historically are two entirely distinct matters and not to be confused with one another. And yet that firm distinction doesn't lead me to endorse the usual way in which history of philosophy is presented.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Confused, Philosophy, Ideas

  Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (2014). “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away”, p.165, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• As much as I care about historical context - I'm very eager to read a really great historical account.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Historical, Care, Really Great

  "Fear of Music". Interview with Jayson Greene, pitchfork.com. May 29, 2012.

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• If you think about the last 50 years, Africa's proximity and historical context has absolutely been with Europe and the United States, but their approach in dealing with the economic challenges that Africa faces in particular has been one of handing out aid, not developing economies, not building a long term relationship around agriculture and so on.

  Dambisa Moyo

  Thinking, Years, Europe

  "The New Maritime Silk Road". Interview with Parag Khanna, bigthink.com.

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• NEU!'s music will always ("für immer") be a part of me and I absolutely stand to what we've created. Of course I have changed since and I judge my contributions to NEU!'s music of the 70's in a historical context. They were both a description of my feelings back then as well as an expression of my musical abilities and limitations. It would be a mistake to ignore the time factor and it would be an artistic shortcoming to pick up on the old concept without doing any changes. There is no way this is going to happen anyway.

  Michael Rother

  Mistake, Musical Ability, Expression

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• I do want to write about social/cultural/historical context. I'm interested in relationships, in character, but within a specific social context. Which is kind of a political thing, I admit that. But it's what I'm interested in, and it's how I believe human behavior is legible.

  Dana Spiotta

  Believe, Writing, Character

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• Anyway I read more contemporary poetry than contemporary fiction so my mind goes first to a kind of crass "conceptualism" that repeats vanguard gestures of the past minus the politics and historical context.

  Ben Lerner

  Past, Contemporary Fiction, Historical

  "Despair strikes me as eminently reasonable and boring". Interview with Tao Lin, believermag.com. September 2014.

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• I think that even though The German Doctor (Wakolda) is placed in a historical context , it is a very intimate story. The film has been extremely well received around the world. It keeps on going around, opening in different markets, and connecting with the audience. In Argentina it was seen by over 450, 000 spectators, which is way more than anything we could have imagined.

  Lucia Puenzo

  Thinking, Doctors, Historical

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• To me, there's a huge difference between criticism and reviewing. I really love reading good criticism of television and film. To me, a critic is someone who analyzes a show, describes it, talks about the people in it, puts it in historical context of other shows like it, compares it and stuff, and then talks about the intent of the show and whether it failed or didn't.

  Louis C. K.

  Reading, Differences, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I enjoyed studying costume, learning about the corsetry and the historical context of fashion. I never had any real intention of being a costume designer.

  Georgina Chapman

  Fashion, Real, Historical

  "Georgina Chapman Interview: Red-Carpet Royalty" by Derek Blasberg, www.harpersbazaar.com. March 21, 2011.

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• The alienation effect in German epic theater is achieved not only through the actors, but also through music (chorus and song) andsets (transparencies, film strips, etc.). Its main purpose is to place the staged events in their historical context.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Song, Art, Epic

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• It's never pleasant to have one's unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.

  Kingsley Amis

  Historical, Belief, Pleasant

  Kingsley Amis (2013). “The Green Man”, p.157, New York Review of Books

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• I was not aware of how much I loved 'Canoa' until I saw it after doing 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' and realized that my voice - over about the story's historical context - that narrator - came from 'Canoa'.

  Alfonso Cuaron

  Voice, Historical, Narrators

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• Many novelists take well-defined, precise characters, whose stories are sometimes of mediocre interest, and place them in an important historical context, which remains secondary in spite of everything.

  Raymond Queneau

  Character, Historical, Important

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• I think if you place Jesus firmly in the historical context... you can make very educated hypotheses and guesses about how he lived.

  Reza Aslan

  Jesus, Thinking, Historical

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