“Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. (8 September 1871)”
Correspondence, Letters to George Sand
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Gustave Flaubert 98
French writer (1821–1880) 1821–1880Related quotes
1961, Berlin Crisis speech
“If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues.”
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. IX : A Snake in the Grass; Gilbert to Eliza
"John Hooper: Bishop and Martyr", p. 70
Light from Old Times (1890)
Joseph Fourier, p. 408.
Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859)
Context: The ancients had a taste, let us say rather a passion, for the marvellous, which caused them to forget even the sacred duties of gratitude. Observe them, for example, grouping together the lofty deeds of a great number of heroes, whose names they have not even deigned to preserve, and investing the single personage of Hercules with them. The lapse of ages has not rendered us wiser in this respect. In our own time the public delight in blending fable with history. In every career of life, in the pursuit of science especially, they enjoy a pleasure in creating Herculeses.
“Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.”
"Game III," p. 98
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”
“It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.”
Source: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Forms, Eulogies, Images and Symbols, p. 157
Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)
