Norman Davies quotes

There is history in condoms, there is history in lampshades, there is history in everything. (Norman Davies)
It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality. View quote
Norman Davies
History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees. View quote
Norman Davies
The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course. View quote
Norman Davies
I first heard of General Anders and his army more than 50 years ago. I admired him then, and I admire him still; and I feel a special bond with the men, women and children whom he rescued from hunger, disease, and official abuse. Theirs is a story of endurance and fortitude that gives one faith in the human spirit. View quote
Norman Davies
In 1945, when the Second World War technically ends in Poland, the incoming Soviet army liberates some groups of people but begins to oppress the general population, in some ways more harshly than it had happened before. View quote
Norman Davies
Nowadays, it is no longer possible to maintain that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 was a fiction invented by bourgeois-imperialist enemies. Everyone has seen the film clips of Herr Ribbentrop landing in Moscow, and of Stalin smiling broadly as Ribbentrop and Molotov signed up side by side. View quote
Norman Davies
I find myself sick to death, tired of arguing about details with people who don't know basic facts. View quote
Norman Davies
One of the few things that can be said for certain about Europe's prehistoric peoples is that they all came from somewhere else. View quote
Norman Davies
I happen to belong to that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent. View quote
Norman Davies
The advance of standard English culture was less assisted by government policy than by the sheer weight, wealth, and number of England's well-established cultural institutions. (Norman Davies)
The historical profession is nowhere famous for its tolerance, but there are not many countries where historians can expect to pay for their opinions with penal servitude or the firing squad. View quote
Norman Davies
Fifty years would seem to be time enough to prepare a definitive history of the Second World War. In an age of instant data-gathering, one might think that the historians could have arrived at a consensus for interpreting the main events of the war. In reality, no such consensus exists. View quote
Norman Davies
Transience is one of the fundamental characteristics both of the human condition and of the political order. View quote
Norman Davies
The question is whether a confident Europe will be a rival for North America - or whether they will work together and become a more unified bloc. View quote
Norman Davies
Historical change is like an avalanche. The starting point is a snow-covered mountainside that looks solid. All changes take place under the surface and are rather invisible. View quote
Norman Davies
At the end of the Roman Empire, in the Byzantine period, the empire shrinks and shrinks until it consists of one city, Constantinople, and the Ottoman Turks can encircle it. View quote
Norman Davies
Bulgaria was the only Axis country to deflect insistent German demands for the deportation of its Jews. View quote
Norman Davies
Serenity is the balance between good and bad, life and death, horrors and pleasures. Life is, as it were, defined by death. If there wasn't death of things, then there wouldn't be any life to celebrate. View quote
Norman Davies
In the years of the Red Terror that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, the voice of dissent was stifled by universal denunciations, house searches, and preventive arrests. View quote
Norman Davies
One of the problems in the Ukrainian crisis is that very few Westerners know their history, or if they know it, what they learn is what we call the Russian version of history. (Norman Davies)
The one certainly for anyone in the path of an avalanche is this: standing still is not an option. View quote
Norman Davies
Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history. View quote
Norman Davies
It was in the 20th century that national sovereignty really ruled the roost, and the E.U. was formed to cure that. View quote
Norman Davies
Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe. View quote
Norman Davies