Quotes from book
A Little History of the World

Name: A Little History of the World
Author: Ernst Gombrich

A Little History of the World is a history book by Ernst Gombrich. It was written in 1935 in Vienna, Austria, when Gombrich was 26 years old. He was rewriting it for English readers when he died in 2001, at 92, in London. Gombrich insisted that only he translate the book into English. After his death, the translation was completed by Caroline Mustill, an assistant to Gombrich from 1995 until his death, and his granddaughter Leonie Gombrich. It was published in 2005 by Yale University Press.

“If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before.”

Ernst Gombrich book A Little History of the World

Source: A Little History of the World (2005), p. 90.

“Our memory is like that burning scrap of paper. We use it to light up the past. First of all our own, and then we ask old people to tell us what they remember. After that we look for letters written by people who are already dead. And in this way we light our way back. There are buildings that are just for storing old scraps of paper that people once wrote on – they are called archives. In them you can find letters written hundreds of years ago. In an archive, I once found a letter which just said: 'Dear Mummy, Dear Mummy, Yesterday we ate some lovely truffles, love from William.”

Ernst Gombrich book A Little History of the World

William was a little Italian prince who lived four hundred years ago.
Source: A Little History of the World (2005), p. 2.

“Even though I came from a Jewish home myself, it never entered my head that such horrors might be repeated in my own lifetime.”

Ernst Gombrich book A Little History of the World

Source: A Little History of the World (2005), p. 276.