32 Simon Schama Quotes for You to Enjoy

Simon Schama

British Historian

Born: Feb 13, 1945

About History Me Time Will You

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

St. Paul was making it impossible to be Jewish and Christian at the same time. What is very striking about those early churches and communities is that you could be both. Under Paul, though, you absolutely couldn't. Simon Schama

It takes a perverse determination to drain that instinctive curiosity away and make history seem just remote, dead and disconnected from our contemporary reality. Conversely, it just takes skilful storytelling to recharge that connection to make the past come alive in our present. Simon Schama

History Reality Determination Past Our Alive Seem Takes Instinctive Come Remote Contemporary Dead Make Disconnected Curiosity Just Storytelling Perverse Connection Away Present Drain

The Jewish story is the story of wandering. It is the story of extraordinary heterogeneous complication. Simon Schama

Extraordinary Complication Wandering Story Jewish

History is admirably dangerous. It is not the soft option. Teachers need to be grown up and brave. Sensitivity is fine, but it stops at the door of honest narrative. Simon Schama

History Dangerous Fine Narrative Up Option Brave Stops Door Sensitivity Teachers Grown Grown-Up Need Honest Soft

I felt New York was a big, more stylish, more metropolitan Golders Green. I was thrilled. Simon Schama

Big More Thrilled New Felt Stylish Metropolitan Green York New York

In Mesopotamia or Egypt, for example, the monarch had a god-like religious status. But this is not the case in Judaism. So that notion that religion can go on, when all the markers of power and trappings of monarchy disappear, ultimately serves the endurance of Judaism very well. Simon Schama

Religion Example Power Markers Status Religious Case Had Disappear For Example Judaism Well Go Ultimately Very God-Like Egypt Endurance Notion Trappings Monarch Monarchy Serve

It's not right to think about all of Jewish-German history as shrouded by the smoke of the crematorium. Simon Schama

History Think About Smoke Right

We seem wired to grieve with greenery. Allowing the dead to dissolve into the earth, to become part of the cycle of the seasons, has, for millennia, held the promise of cheating mortality. Simon Schama

Cheating Become Dissolve Earth Promise Seem Wired Allowing Part Mortality Dead Grieve Held Cycle Seasons Millennia

The British who arrived in the United States in the eighteen-thirties and forties had imagined the young republic as a wide-eyed adolescent, socially ungainly and politically gauche, but with some hint of promise. Simon Schama

Young States Promise Some Adolescent Had Hint Arrived Politically Republic Forties Who United United States Socially British Imagined

I did an audiobook for 'Rough Crossings,' which I thought was one of the best books I had published. But it was an absolute embarrassment to read it. All these horrible mucked-up bits of syntax, over-the-top adjectives. I found myself editing it while reading. Alert listeners will notice the difference. Simon Schama

Best Myself Editing Will Thought Reading Books Syntax Bits Adjectives Embarrassment Horrible Absolute Had Over-The-Top Read Did Listeners Difference Which While Notice Rough Found Published Alert

I find it very hard to write about Jewish history. Simon Schama

History Find About Write Very Hard Jewish

The Elephantine papyri - written as some of the books of the Bible are being written - is true social and legal documentation, and to historians overwhelmingly powerful and moving, even when ostensibly about trivial things. Simon Schama

Bible Legal Books Some About Trivial Written True Powerful Documentation Historians Being Moving Social Even Things

In the Einstein way, I can't believe in a universe that doesn't have some sort of prime mover, identical with all of created nature. I have a whole lot of a harder time with supposing the fine print of the Torah was a direct revelation. Simon Schama

The Bible, for all its riches, is not a document of social history. Simon Schama

History Bible Document Social Riches

It was the Sephardi Jews who brought fish and chips to Britain, actually, believe it or not, from the Mediterranean world. Apart from actually eating and selling fish and chips, they were kind of debt enforcers. Simon Schama

World Believe Mediterranean Jews Kind Eating Brought Fish Were Debt Selling Apart Chips Who Actually Britain

I do not want to be misunderstood that you need a dose of persecution in order, really, to have a sense of your identity. Otherwise, you know, there would be no American Jews. Even if you're not strictly, fiercely Orthodox, you commit yourselves to a community of memory. Simon Schama

You Memory Sense Community Jews Otherwise Strictly Would Would-Be Know Identity Misunderstood Persecution American Commit Order Want Dose Fiercely Really Your Even Orthodox Need

America is truly special because it's founded on an idea. It's the ideological and philosophical equivalent of a formless God, in other words, you know? It's, again, the only great country in the world that it is formed out of words. Simon Schama

God Great You Words World Country Other Philosophical Great Country Out Only Idea Know Ideological Because Equivalent Truly America In Other Words Formed Again Special Founded

Jewish history has been in my cultural DNA since I was a child growing up in post-war London. In the midst of that dark, gray, lamenting monochromatic world of the '50s, I had a sense that both Jewish and English history were full of color and light and animation. Simon Schama

History World Dark Light Sense Has-Been Post-War London Both Color Had Animation Since Were Been Cultural Up Child Midst Full English Growing Growing Up Gray Jewish

I used to have a monthly cookery column, and am a big cook, so that whole sense of connecting what one does with food to one's cultural identity has always been fascinating to me. Simon Schama

Food Me Big Sense Monthly Column Identity Does Always Am Been Cultural Cook Used Cookery Connecting Fascinating Whole

The most gloomy prognosis about Jewish life is that it will disappear between the two extremes of ultra-Orthodoxy on the one hand and total assimilation on the other. But those are very exaggerated scenarios. Simon Schama

Life Will Other Extremes Those Total Exaggerated About Scenarios Disappear Between Most Gloomy Hand Very Assimilation Two Jewish

From the very beginning, history wasn't content simply to be nostalgic fairytales; it wanted to make you think. Simon Schama

History You Beginning Think Simply Make Content Very Wanted Nostalgic

Jewish comedy doesn't come out of nothing. Jewish music doesn't come out of nothing... I don't want to be part of a story where Jews are just victims or bullies - and I'm not saying that's what the Israelis are. Simon Schama

Music Saying Comedy Nothing Jews Out Part Come Israelis Bullies Just Where Want Story Victims Jewish

The novelist's obligation to remake the sensuous texture of a vanished world is also the historian's. The strongest fiction writers often do deep research to make the thought and utterances of lost time credible. Simon Schama

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