"In my time and neighborhood (and in my soul) there was only one standard by which a woman measured success: did some man want her?"
-Jessamyn West
successView Quote
"The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.“
-Jessamyn West
posted in history
Other Quotes
Discover more inspiring quotes from our collection
"Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking."
-Jessamyn West
societyView Quote
"Teaching is the royal road to learning."
-Jessamyn West
learningView Quote
"The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future."
-Jessamyn West
imaginationView Quote
"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures."
-Jessamyn West
imaginationView Quote
"A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself."
-Jessamyn West
humorView Quote
Same Category
More quotes in this category
"Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers."
-Carlos Fuentes
historyView Quote
"If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society."
-Strom Thurmond
historyView Quote
"For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats."
-Harry Browne
historyView Quote
"There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations."
-Claude Vorilhon
historyView Quote
"This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?"
-Azar Nafisi
historyView Quote
"What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history."
-Barney Frank
historyView Quote