“we are not guiltless
long ago we became accomplices
of the history in the mirror”

—  Bei Dao

"Accomplices", p. 89
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "we are not guiltless long ago we became accomplices of the history in the mirror" by Bei Dao?
Bei Dao photo
Bei Dao 6
contemporary Chinese (PRC) avant garde poet 1949

Related quotes

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Long ago we conquered our passions
Looking at ourselves in the mirror of eternity.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

"Prayer," p. 47
The Shape (2000), Sequence: “Pit of the Stone”

Karlheinz Deschner photo

“Whoever writes on world history, but not as a forensic history, becomes thereby an accomplice.”

Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist

Wer Weltgeschichte nicht als Kriminalgeschichte schreibt, ist ihr Komplize.
Bissige Aphorismen, S. 54

Kiro Gligorov photo

“We are Macedonians but we are Slav Macedonians. That's who we are! We have no connection to Alexander the Great and his Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians no longer exist, they had disappeared from history long time ago. Our ancestors came here in the 5th and 6th century”

Kiro Gligorov (1917–2012) President of the Republic of Macedonia

AD
Toronto Star (March 15, 1992)

“Economics, we learn in the history of thought, only became a science by escaping from the casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1970s, Economics As a Science, 1970, p. 117

J. Howard Moore photo

“All the barbarism is not behind us nor around us. History looks dark and discouraging to us, as we turn its terrible pages, but we would see something just as discouraging if we would look into a mirror.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Modern Ethics", pp. 270–271
The Universal Kinship (1906), The Ethical Kinship

Terry Gilliam photo

“And we were lucky because we have a magic mirror in this movie. Not every movie has a magic mirror.”

Terry Gilliam (1940) American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe

On Heath Ledger's death in January 2008, as quoted in Terry Gilliam on Heath Ledger’s death and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (14 May 2008) http://cma.staging-thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/film/article2431428.ece
Context: We were devastated. We spent the whole day — Amy Gilliam, Nicola Pecorini, the director of photography, and myself — lying flat on the floor. Heath Ledger's dead, and you don't quite get over that. I suppose I'm in an interesting position because while I'm cutting the film I'm basically working with him every day and he's fine; he's in good shape. Ideas are floating around. Then finally we decided, 'OK, let's get three other people to take over the part'. And we were lucky because we have a magic mirror in this movie. Not every movie has a magic mirror. So you can very genuinely say that these other actors are different aspects of the character that Heath plays. And it works. The point was, we've got to keep going. It was a bit like half being there, but apparently on autopilot I can still do a few things.

Jim Steinman photo

“But it was long ago and it was far away,
Oh god, it seems so very far.
And if life is just a highway
Then the soul is just a car.And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

"Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are"
Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993)

Hans-Georg Gadamer photo

“In fact history does not belong to us but rather we to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society, and state in which we live. The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self awareness of the Individual is only a flickering in the closed circuit of historical life. That is why the prejudices of an individual are — much more than that individual's judgments — the historical reality of his being.”

Hans-Georg Gadamer book Truth and Method

Source: Truth and Method (1960), p. 289
Variant translation: In truth history does not belong to us but rather we to history. … The focus of subjectivity is a distorted mirror. Individual self-reflection is merely a flickering in the closed circuit of historical life. That is why the prejudices of an individual are —much more than that individual's judgments — the historical reality of his being.
As quoted in Tom Neton, "Hermeneutical Truth and the Structure of Human Experience: Gadamer's Critique of Dilthey" in The Specter of Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics (1995) edited by Lawrence Schmidt.

Taylor Caldwell photo

“It is a stern fact of history that no nation that rushed to the abyss ever turned back. Not ever, in the long history of the world. We are now on the edge of the abyss. Can we, for the first time in history, turn back? It is up to you.”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

"Honoria" (1957); republished in The New American, Vol. 19, No. 20, (6 October 2003)
1950s

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“For our improvement we need a mirror.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Zu unserer Besserung bedürfen wir eines Spiegels.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Related topics