12 Neil MacGregor Quotes for You to Enjoy

Neil MacGregor

British Historian

Born: Jun 16, 1946

First History Society Time World You

Related authors: A. J. P. Taylor Antony Beevor Arnold J. Toynbee Arthur Helps C. Northcote Parkinson Linda Colley Norman Davies Simon Schama

As the Persians wrote very little about how they ran their affairs, the Greek propaganda of the 5th century B.C. has for centuries gone virtually unchallenged - indeed, for Edward Said, it was the beginning of Europe's long habit of misunderstanding and ill-informed contempt of the Middle East. Neil MacGregor

Long Beginning Gone Virtually Ran Indeed East Propaganda About Habit Wrote Contempt Said Misunderstanding How Affairs Edward Very Greek Middle Middle East Little Centuries Century Europe

Creation stories, so central in the religions of the Middle East, play a surprisingly marginal part in Greek myth. The Greeks had nothing to set alongside the resounding 'In the beginning' in the book of Genesis, where one eternal God creates the universe out of nothing. Neil MacGregor

God Book Myth Beginning Nothing Creation Universe Resounding East Out Religions Had Part Genesis Alongside Surprisingly Greek Greeks Middle Where Middle East Stories In The Beginning Central Eternal Creates Play Marginal Set

The things we make have one supreme quality - they live longer than us. We perish, they survive; we have one life, they have many lives, and in each life they can mean different things. Which means that, while we all have one biography, they have many. Neil MacGregor

Hardest of all for Europeans to negotiate are traditional African religions, whose transactions with unseen powers are central to the running of life in many areas, the main weapon in the struggle against the forces of evil. Neil MacGregor

The spread of Viking bling is a good indication of the spread of its culture. Neil MacGregor

Good Culture Indication Spread

In a very literal way, of course, Shakespeare did change the course of history: when it didn't fit the plot he had in mind, he simply rewrote it. His English histories play fast and loose with chronology and fact to achieve the desired dramatic effect, re-ordering history even as it was then understood. Neil MacGregor

History Change Achieve Mind Chronology Dramatic Way Plot Shakespeare Fact Had He Simply Course Loose Understood His Effect Fit Histories Very Did Literal Then English Even Fast Play Desired

Thanks to the unprecedented reach of British navigation, London in the early 18th century was not just the emporium of the world, it was the first place in which it was possible to assemble artifacts from around the world and allow people to study them. Neil MacGregor

The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose of the activity is an aesthetic response. The museum is actually about the object that lets you get into somebody else's life. Neil MacGregor

London theatre is different: it is a commercial theatre that brings the whole of society into one place. And Shakespeare grasped, better than anyone else, what it means to engage the entire audience. Neil MacGregor

Theatre Better Society Else London Entire Shakespeare Audience Commercial Than Different Anyone Anyone Else Place Engage Means Grasped Whole Brings

If you are born in 1564, your dislocation from your parents' experience is very profound. You are the first generation who will have had all your religious experience in English, the first to have a countryman circumnavigate the globe. All the power and economic structures of the world are changing around you. Neil MacGregor

You Generation Experience World Will Parents Power First Changing Religious Religious Experience Born Structures Economic Had First Generation Globe Around Very Dislocation Your English Who Profound

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