Famous quotes containing the words wars, europe and/or decline:
“The bases for historical knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in the guise of wars or revolutions.”
—Paul Deman (1919–1983)
“I’ve come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)