Theodore Zeldin - An intimate history of humanity (1994)

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No history of the world can be complete which does not mention Mary Helen Keller... whose overcoming of her blindness and deafness were arguably victories more important than those of Alexander the Great, because they have implications still for every living person.

Theodore Zeldin
It takes a long time for people to recognize their soul-mates when they have too limited an idea of who they are themselves.

Theodore Zeldin
The violent have been victorious for most of history because they kindled the fear with which everyone is born.

Theodore Zeldin
Nothing influences our ability to cope with the difficulties of our existence so much as the context in which we view them; the more contexts we can choose between, the less do the difficulties appear to be inevitable and insurmountable.

Theodore Zeldin
Forks and spoons have probably done more to reconcile people who cannot agree than guns and bombs ever did

Theodore Zeldin
Even Gandhi, with all his charisma, did not "melt the hearts" of his oppressors, as he had hoped. After softening, hearts harden again. Asoka too was wrong to think that he was changing the course of history, and that his righteousness would last "as long as the sun and the moon."

Theodore Zeldin
The temptation before 1933 was to believe in Hitler as a savior, to believe in a national rebirth. The path to National Socialism led through a wasteland of personal fears, collective anxiety, and resentments. The temptation was to surrender oneself to a dictator, to believe in a miracle. Hitler evoked human will and divine providence. The religious-mystical element in National Socialism was uncannily appealing to unpolitical people, to unrealistic people at odds with their world and accustomed perhaps to the dream of heroic irrationalism. The temptation was to abandon oneself to national delirium— despite (or even because of) the threat of violence.

Theodore Zeldin
To be a catalyst is the ambition most appropriate for those who see the world as being in constant change, and who, without thinking that they can control it, wish to influence its direction.

Theodore Zeldin
Only when people learn to converse will they begin to be equal.

Theodore Zeldin