--- title: "15 Historical Sense Quotes by 10 authors" description: "Browse 15 Historical Sense quotes by 10 authors. Discover the best Historical Sense sayings and thoughts." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/391/anonymous-1_historical_the-historical-sense-involves-a-percepti_1871860.jpg" --- > [The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/the-historical-sense-involves-a-perception-not-only-of-the-pastness/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/391/anonymous-1_historical_the-historical-sense-involves-a-percepti_1871860.jpg) > [A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/friedrich-nietzsche/a-lack-of-the-historical-sense-is-the-hereditary-fault-of-all/) [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/friedrich-nietzsche/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b80/friedrich-nietzsche-15_faults_a-lack-of-the-historical-sense-is-the-he_115983.jpg) > [Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/goldwin-smith/ancient-history-besides-the-still-unequalled-excellence-of-the/) [Goldwin Smith](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/goldwin-smith/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/04f/goldwin-smith-17422_ancient_ancient-history-besides-the-still-unequa_1869912.jpg) > [The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/t-s-eliot/the-historical-sense-compels-a-man-to-write-not-merely-with-his-own/) [T. S. Eliot](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/t-s-eliot/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3cc/t-s-eliot-633_bones_the-historical-sense-compels-a-man-to-wr_474960.jpg) > [After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/marie-curie/after-all-science-is-essentially-international-and-it-is-only-through/) [Marie Curie](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/marie-curie/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d6e/marie-curie-8496_historical_after-all-science-is-essentially-interna_2392560.jpg) > [Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-penn-warren/historical-sense-and-poetic-sense-should-not-in-the-end-be/) [Robert Penn Warren](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-penn-warren/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/816/robert-penn-warren-2118_bigs_historical-sense-and-poetic-sense-should_1243251.jpg) > [One of the great things about being an older person is that I am very aware of the scope of the work…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/annie-leibovitz/one-of-the-great-things-about-being-an-older-person-is-that-i-am-very/) [Annie Leibovitz](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/annie-leibovitz/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d52/annie-leibovitz-4011_great_one-of-the-great-things-about-being-an-o_1648734.jpg) > [“The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/friedrich-nietzsche/the-power-of-gradually-losing-all-feeling-of-strangeness-or/) [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/friedrich-nietzsche/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0fc/friedrich-nietzsche-15_culture_the-power-of-gradually-losing-all-feelin_2197307.jpg) > [“History, I always think, is our reality check. And understanding it in places like Liverpool's International Slavery Museum is an essential part…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/history-i-always-think-is-our-reality-check-and-understanding-it-in/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ba/anonymous-1_history_history-i-always-think-is-our-reality-ch_235532.jpg) > [“In historical events great men-so called-are but the labels that serve to give a mane to an event, and like labels, they…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/in-historical-events-great-men-so-called-are-but-the-labels-that/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/db2/anonymous-1_great-men_in-historical-events-great-men-so-called_2476268.jpg) > [“Consciously a man lives on his own account in freedom of willbut he serves as an unconscious instrument in bringing about the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/consciously-a-man-lives-on-his-own-account-in-freedom-of-willbut-he/) [Leo Tolstoy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leo-tolstoy/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a2/leo-tolstoy-55_freedom_consciously-a-man-lives-on-his-own-accou_1549732.jpg) > [In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/in-historic-events-the-so-called-great-men-are-labels-giving-names-to/) [Leo Tolstoy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leo-tolstoy/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9f1/leo-tolstoy-55_connections_in-historic-events-the-so-called-great-m_2625728.png) > [Life cannot be destroyed for good, neithercan history be brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet trickles on beneath the heavy…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/vaclav-havel/life-cannot-be-destroyed-for-good-neithercan-history-be-brought/) [Vaclav Havel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/vaclav-havel/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f4/vaclav-havel-2013_cracks_life-cannot-be-destroyed-for-good-neithe_2261915.jpg) > [“Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/t-s-eliot-2/yet-if-the-only-form-of-tradition-of-handing-down-consisted-in/) [T.S. Eliot](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/t-s-eliot-2/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/af4/t-s-eliot-2-1761_culture_yet-if-the-only-form-of-tradition-of-han_1060416.jpg) > [“When I look at this age with the eye of a distant future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/friedrich-nietzsche/when-i-look-at-this-age-with-the-eye-of-a-distant-future-i-find/) [Friedrich Nietzsche](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/friedrich-nietzsche/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f19/friedrich-nietzsche-15_happiness_when-i-look-at-this-age-with-the-eye-of_606196.jpg) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/historical-sense/#itemlist", "name": "Historical Sense Quotes", "numberOfItems": 15, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Anonymous" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/the-historical-sense-involves-a-perception-not-only-of-the-pastness/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/391/anonymous-1_historical_the-historical-sense-involves-a-percepti_1871860.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/391/anonymous-1_historical_the-historical-sense-involves-a-percepti_1871860.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/391/anonymous-1_historical_the-historical-sense-involves-a-percepti_1871860.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence” — Anonymous", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Friedrich Nietzsche" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/friedrich-nietzsche/a-lack-of-the-historical-sense-is-the-hereditary-fault-of-all/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b80/friedrich-nietzsche-15_faults_a-lack-of-the-historical-sense-is-the-he_115983.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b80/friedrich-nietzsche-15_faults_a-lack-of-the-historical-sense-is-the-he_115983.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b80/friedrich-nietzsche-15_faults_a-lack-of-the-historical-sense-is-the-he_115983.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.” — Friedrich Nietzsche", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Goldwin Smith" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/goldwin-smith/ancient-history-besides-the-still-unequalled-excellence-of-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/04f/goldwin-smith-17422_ancient_ancient-history-besides-the-still-unequa_1869912.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/04f/goldwin-smith-17422_ancient_ancient-history-besides-the-still-unequa_1869912.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/04f/goldwin-smith-17422_ancient_ancient-history-besides-the-still-unequa_1869912.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for…” — Goldwin Smith", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of literature from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "T. S. Eliot" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/t-s-eliot/the-historical-sense-compels-a-man-to-write-not-merely-with-his-own/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3cc/t-s-eliot-633_bones_the-historical-sense-compels-a-man-to-wr_474960.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3cc/t-s-eliot-633_bones_the-historical-sense-compels-a-man-to-wr_474960.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3cc/t-s-eliot-633_bones_the-historical-sense-compels-a-man-to-wr_474960.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a…” — T. S. Eliot", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Marie Curie" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/marie-curie/after-all-science-is-essentially-international-and-it-is-only-through/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d6e/marie-curie-8496_historical_after-all-science-is-essentially-interna_2392560.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d6e/marie-curie-8496_historical_after-all-science-is-essentially-interna_2392560.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d6e/marie-curie-8496_historical_after-all-science-is-essentially-interna_2392560.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that…” — Marie Curie", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Penn Warren" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-penn-warren/historical-sense-and-poetic-sense-should-not-in-the-end-be/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/816/robert-penn-warren-2118_bigs_historical-sense-and-poetic-sense-should_1243251.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/816/robert-penn-warren-2118_bigs_historical-sense-and-poetic-sense-should_1243251.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/816/robert-penn-warren-2118_bigs_historical-sense-and-poetic-sense-should_1243251.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth…” — Robert Penn Warren", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "One of the great things about being an older person is that I am very aware of the scope of the work and the historical sense of it. It's bigger than me.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Annie Leibovitz" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/annie-leibovitz/one-of-the-great-things-about-being-an-older-person-is-that-i-am-very/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d52/annie-leibovitz-4011_great_one-of-the-great-things-about-being-an-o_1648734.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d52/annie-leibovitz-4011_great_one-of-the-great-things-about-being-an-o_1648734.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d52/annie-leibovitz-4011_great_one-of-the-great-things-about-being-an-o_1648734.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“One of the great things about being an older person is that I am very aware of the scope of the work and the…” — Annie Leibovitz", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense or historical culture.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Friedrich Nietzsche" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/friedrich-nietzsche/the-power-of-gradually-losing-all-feeling-of-strangeness-or/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0fc/friedrich-nietzsche-15_culture_the-power-of-gradually-losing-all-feelin_2197307.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0fc/friedrich-nietzsche-15_culture_the-power-of-gradually-losing-all-feelin_2197307.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0fc/friedrich-nietzsche-15_culture_the-power-of-gradually-losing-all-feelin_2197307.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at…” — Friedrich Nietzsche", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 9, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“History, I always think, is our reality check. And understanding it in places like Liverpool's International Slavery Museum is an essential part of deepening our historical sense as Britons in today's multi-ethnic society.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Anonymous" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/history-i-always-think-is-our-reality-check-and-understanding-it-in/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ba/anonymous-1_history_history-i-always-think-is-our-reality-ch_235532.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ba/anonymous-1_history_history-i-always-think-is-our-reality-ch_235532.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ba/anonymous-1_history_history-i-always-think-is-our-reality-ch_235532.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“History, I always think, is our reality check. And understanding it in places like Liverpool's International…” — Anonymous", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 10, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“In historical events great men-so called-are but the labels that serve to give a mane to an event, and like labels, they have the last possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Anonymous" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/in-historical-events-great-men-so-called-are-but-the-labels-that/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/db2/anonymous-1_great-men_in-historical-events-great-men-so-called_2476268.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/db2/anonymous-1_great-men_in-historical-events-great-men-so-called_2476268.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/db2/anonymous-1_great-men_in-historical-events-great-men-so-called_2476268.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“In historical events great men-so called-are but the labels that serve to give a mane to an event, and like…” — Anonymous", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 11, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Consciously a man lives on his own account in freedom of willbut he serves as an unconscious instrument in bringing about the historical ends of humanity. An act he has once committed is irrecvocable, and that act of his, coinciding in time with millions of acts of others, has an historical value... 'The hearts of kinds are in the hand of God.' The king is the slave of history... Every action that seems to them an act of their own freewill, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Leo Tolstoy" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/consciously-a-man-lives-on-his-own-account-in-freedom-of-willbut-he/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a2/leo-tolstoy-55_freedom_consciously-a-man-lives-on-his-own-accou_1549732.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a2/leo-tolstoy-55_freedom_consciously-a-man-lives-on-his-own-accou_1549732.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0a2/leo-tolstoy-55_freedom_consciously-a-man-lives-on-his-own-accou_1549732.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Consciously a man lives on his own account in freedom of willbut he serves as an unconscious instrument in…” — Leo Tolstoy", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 12, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Leo Tolstoy" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/in-historic-events-the-so-called-great-men-are-labels-giving-names-to/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9f1/leo-tolstoy-55_connections_in-historic-events-the-so-called-great-m_2625728.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9f1/leo-tolstoy-55_connections_in-historic-events-the-so-called-great-m_2625728.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9f1/leo-tolstoy-55_connections_in-historic-events-the-so-called-great-m_2625728.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but…” — Leo Tolstoy", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 13, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Life cannot be destroyed for good, neithercan history be brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet trickles on beneath the heavy lid of inertia and pseudo-events, slowly and inconspicuously undercutting it. It may be a long process, but one day it must happen: the lid will no longer hold and will start to crack. This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and uniquesomething truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Vaclav Havel" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/vaclav-havel/life-cannot-be-destroyed-for-good-neithercan-history-be-brought/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f4/vaclav-havel-2013_cracks_life-cannot-be-destroyed-for-good-neithe_2261915.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f4/vaclav-havel-2013_cracks_life-cannot-be-destroyed-for-good-neithe_2261915.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f4/vaclav-havel-2013_cracks_life-cannot-be-destroyed-for-good-neithe_2261915.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Life cannot be destroyed for good, neithercan history be brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet…” — Vaclav Havel", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 14, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour...the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "T.S. Eliot" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/t-s-eliot-2/yet-if-the-only-form-of-tradition-of-handing-down-consisted-in/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/af4/t-s-eliot-2-1761_culture_yet-if-the-only-form-of-tradition-of-han_1060416.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/af4/t-s-eliot-2-1761_culture_yet-if-the-only-form-of-tradition-of-han_1060416.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/af4/t-s-eliot-2-1761_culture_yet-if-the-only-form-of-tradition-of-han_1060416.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate…” — T.S. Eliot", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 15, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“When I look at this age with the eye of a distant future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the present day as his peculiar virtue and sickness called \"the historical sense.\" It is a tendency to something quite new and foreign in history: if this embryo were given several centuries and more, there might finally evolve out of it a marvellous plant, with a smell equally marvellous, on account of which our old earth might be more pleasant to live in than it has been hitherto. We moderns are just beginning to form the chain of a very powerful, future sentiment, link by link, we hardly know what we are doing. It almost seems to us as if it were not the question of a new sentiment, but of the decline of all old sentiments: the historical sense is still something so poor and cold, and many are attacked by it as by a frost, and are made poorer and colder by it. To others it appears as the indication of stealthily approaching age, and our planet is regarded by them as a melancholy invalid, who, in order to forget his present condition, writes the history of his youth. In fact, this is one aspect of the new sentiment He who knows how to regard the history of man in its entirety as his own history, feels in the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks of health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of the lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is destroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which has brought him wounds and the loss of a friend. But to bear this immense sum of grief of all kinds, to be able to bear it, and yet still be the hero who at the commencement of a second day of battle greets the dawn and his happiness, as one who has an horizon of centuries before and behind him, as the heir of all nobility, of all past intellect, and the obligatory heir (as the noblest) of all the old nobles; while at the same time the first of a new nobility, the equal of which has never been seen nor even dreamt of: to take all this upon his soul, the oldest, the newest, the losses, hopes, conquests, and victories of mankind: to have all this at last in one soul, and to comprise it in one feeling: this would necessarily furnish a happiness which man has not hitherto known, a God's happiness, full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness which, like the sun in the evening, continually gives of its inexhaustible riches and empties into the sea, and like the sun, too, feels itself richest when even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars! This divine feeling might then be called humanity!”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Friedrich Nietzsche" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/friedrich-nietzsche/when-i-look-at-this-age-with-the-eye-of-a-distant-future-i-find/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f19/friedrich-nietzsche-15_happiness_when-i-look-at-this-age-with-the-eye-of_606196.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f19/friedrich-nietzsche-15_happiness_when-i-look-at-this-age-with-the-eye-of_606196.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f19/friedrich-nietzsche-15_happiness_when-i-look-at-this-age-with-the-eye-of_606196.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“When I look at this age with the eye of a distant future, I find nothing so remarkable in the man of the…” — Friedrich Nietzsche", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/historical-sense/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/historical-sense/", "name": "Historical Sense Quotes", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/historical-sense/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/391/anonymous-1_historical_the-historical-sense-involves-a-percepti_1871860.jpg" }, "description": "Browse 15 Historical Sense quotes by 10 authors. 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