Any good history begins in strangeness. The past should not be comfortable. The past should not a familar echo of the present, for if it is familar why revist it? The past should be so strange that you wonder how you and people you know and love could come from such a time.

Richard White

Richard White

history ireland strangeness

Related Quotes

...early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an armed camp at perpetual war with its neighbors, and every farmer claims he is a king.

— David Willis McCullough

a step of unparalleled magnitude in the recent history of Northern Ireland.

HistoryNorthernÂ ireland

When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

— Richard Alfred Milliken (Millikin)

The groves of Blarney They look so charming Down by the purling Of sweet, silent brooks.

— Richard Alfred Milliken (Millikin)

I think, actually, everyone starts out with some strange in them. It's just whether or not you decide to keep it.

— Katherine Rundell