Ian Jack quotes

“The natural way of ensuring that the past continues to live in the present and to inform the future is to write it down.”
-- Ian Jack

#Wise Quotes #Writing Quotes #Past Quotes

“On the Internet, you can form a community without having to go through the trouble of meeting anyone.”
-- Ian Jack

#Community Quotes #Internet Quotes #Trouble Quotes

“Most British newspapers now have more columns than the Acropolis”
-- Ian Jack

#Acropolis Quotes #Newspapers Quotes #Columns Quotes

“When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, `Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.' But I was one-and-twenty No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, `The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.' And I am two-and-twenty And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.”

“It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?”

Source : A. J. Jacobs (2011). “A.J. Jacobs Omnibus: The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, My Life as an Experiment”, p.707, Simon and Schuster

“We need not take refuge in supernatural gods to explain our saints and sages and heroes and statesmen, as if to explain our disbelief that mere unaided human beings could be that good or wise.”

“The Bible is proved to be a revelation from God, by the reasonableness and holiness of its precepts; all its commands, exhortations, and promises having the most direct tendency to make men wise, holy, and happy in themselves, and useful to one another.”

Source : Adam Clarke (1820). “Clavis Biblica; or, a Compendium of Scriptural Knowledge; containing a general view of the contents of the Old and New Testaments ... originally drawn up for the instruction of Two Teerunanxies, or High Priests of Budhoo, from the Island of Ceylon”, p.48

“Where we are from... [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he'd be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.”

“This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.”

“The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.”

Source : "The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939". Book by A. J. P. Taylor, 1957.

“In the past, I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby, Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics, Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.”

“The past actually happened. History is what someone took the time to write down.”

“How aware were photographers in the past of other visual arts? "No photographer of any distinction at all could approach his work without some awareness of what was going on in other visual media, and for that matter neither the painter nor the draughtsman could ignore photography."”