Historical Necessity

Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or necessity:

“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“Were it not for the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no ... necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community, and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided associations.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)