Revolution by Number
“There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.”
1860s, Letter to James C. Conkling (1863)
Context: But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction, than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt, returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us, since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion; and that, at least one of those important successes, could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called abolitionism, or with republican party politics; but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections, often urged, that emancipation, and arming the blacks, are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted, as such, in good faith.
“Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.”
La vie ressemble plus souvent à un roman qu'un roman ne ressemble à la vie.
Metella, ch. 1 (1833); Robert J. Ackerman Perfect Daughters (Deerfield Beach, Fla.: HCI, 2002) p. 31
On plays versus novels in “Luis Rafael Sánchez: Counterpoints" https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00096005/00024/14j (Sargasso, 1984)
“France has done more for even English history than England has.”
John Stuart Mill. Michelet.On the writing of English history. Complete Works Vol 20. Page 221.http://files.libertyfund.org/pll/pdf/Mill_0223-20_EBk_v7.0.pdf
“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”
“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.”
Source: Starship Troopers
“History is a novel whose author is the people.”
L'histoire est un roman dont le peuple est l'auteur.
"Réflexions sur la vérité dans l'art", p. 6; translation from James H. Johnson Listening in Paris (1995) p. 252.
Cinq-Mars; ou, une conjuration sous Louis XIII (1826)
