"Through this forest of special pleading the historian gropes his way, trying to recapture the truth of past events and find out “what really happened.” He discovers that truth is subjective and separate, made up of little bits seen, experienced, and recorded by different people. It is like a design seen through a kaleidoscope; when the cylinder is shaken the countless colored fragments form a new picture. Yet they are the same fragments that made a different picture a moment earlier. This is the problem inherent in the records left by actors in past events. That famous goal, “wie es wirklich war,” is never wholly within our grasp."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Sources (p. 525)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_August
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Guns of August
94 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Guns of August →
Related Quotes
"Germans felt similar emotions. The war was to be, wrote Thomas Mann, “a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope.…"
"Where Brooke was embracing cleanness and nobleness, Mann saw a more positive goal. Germans being, he said, the most e…"
"No longer the prewar mischief maker and saber rattler, he was now depicted as a dark, satanic tyrant, breathing cruel…"
"“Major von Kleist gave orders that a man or, if no man was available, a woman, be taken from every household as a hos…"
"The Germans were obsessively concerned about violations of international law. They succeeded in overlooking the viola…"
"The German obsession had two parts: that Belgian resistance was illegal and that it was organized from “above” by the…"
"Fear and horror of the franc-tireur sprang from the German feeling that civilian resistance was essentially disorderl…"
"An officer in charge in one street watched gloomily, smoking a cigar. He was rabid against the Belgians, and kept rep…"
"Why did the Germans do it? people asked all over the world. “Are you descendants of Goethe or of Attila the Hun?”"
"When the Battle of the Frontiers ended, the war had been in progress for twenty days and during that time had created…"