A modern theory of knowledge which takes account of the relational as distinct from the merely relative character of all historical knowledge must start with the assumption that there are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context. Even a god could not formulate a proposition on historical subjects like 2 x 2 = 4, for what is intelligible in history can be formulated only with reference to problems and conceptual constructions which themselves arise in the flux of historical experience.
quote by Karl Mannheim

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The thought of every group is seen as arising out of its life conditions. Thus, it becomes the task of the sociological history of thought to analyse without regard for party biases all the factors in the actually existing social situation which may influence thought. This sociologically oriented history of ideas is destined to provide modern men with a revised view of the whole historical process.
quote by Karl Mannheim

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Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context.
quote by Josh McDowell

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We have gotten away from this double aspect of either putting the character back into historical events or of making a historical event of his very life.
quote by Raymond Queneau

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Our questions and answers are in part determined by the historical tradition in which we find ourselves. We apprehend truth from our own source within the historical tradition. The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if
philosophising is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.
quote by Karl Jaspers

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Fundamental of Liar Chapter XCVIII: Absolutely Relative
Expensive is absolute, cheap is relative
Far is absolute, near is relative
Ugly is absolute, beauty is relative
Weird is absolute, crazy is relative
Stubborn is absolute, brave is relative
Stupid is absolute, smart is relative
Weak is absolute, strong is relative
Old is absolute, mature is relative
Lose is absolute, win is relative
Rich is absolute, poor is relative
Sad is absolute, happy is relative
Misfortune is absolute, lucky is relative
Safe is absolute, fear is relative
Love is absolute, hate is relative
Important is absolute, forgotten is relative
Easy is absolute, difficult is relative
Wrong is absolute, right is relative
Bad is absolute, good is relative
Lie is absolute, truth is relative
poem by Maria Sudibyo

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Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)

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It was clear to me that the forms of consciousness of our inherited and acquired historical education - aesthetic consciousness and historical consciousness - presented alienated forms of our true historical being.
quote by Hans-Georg Gadamer

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It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.
quote by Ibrahim Babangida

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Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.
quote by Jean M. Auel

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For long, history was mainly political history, and historical narrative was confined to an account of the most important crises in political life, or to an account of wars and great generals.
quote by Michael I. Rostovtzeff

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No, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers.
quote by Heinrich Schliemann

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On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.
When I want to dissect a modern problem, I actually find many similar problems in ancient days. In fact, without the many outer layers of so-called modern civilization, the themes I find in old stories are more clear-cut. They are so visible and extreme. I am not saying that all historical eras are similar to today. But by using a comprehensible social structure such as we had in the past, it is much easier for me to convey or re-create modern situations.
Kaneto Shindo in Voices from the Japanese Cinema (1975)

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The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.
quote by Georg Simmel

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I like historical pieces. History was my favorite subject in school, it was the only subject I excelled in. I love the idea of history and the idea that we may have the opportunity to learn from our past mistakes.
quote by Cary Elwes

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Bourgeois class domination is undoubtedly an historical necessity, but, so too, the rising of the working class against it. Capital is an historical necessity, but, so too, its grave digger, the socialist proletariat.
quote by Rosa Luxemburg

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The historical development of the work of anthropologists seems to single out clearly a domain of knowledge that heretofore has not been treated by any other science.
quote by Franz Boas

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For us, universal values such as justice, morality and peace cannot be disputed and it is for this reason that we pursue the restoration of historical truth.
quote by Robert Kocharian

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There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.
quote by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

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To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize "how it really was." It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. For historical materialism it is a question of holding fast to a picture of the past, just as if it had unexpectedly thrust itself, in a moment of danger, on the historical subject. The danger threatens the stock of tradition as much as its recipients. For both it is one and the same: handing itself over as the tool of the ruling classes. In every epoch, the attempt must be made to deliver tradition anew from the conformism which is on the point of overwhelming it. For the Messiah arrives not merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the Anti-christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
quote by Walter Benjamin

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