The idea of progress – the notion that human history is the history of human betterment – dominated the world view of the West between the Enlightenment and the First World War. Jill Lepore Read Quote
Throughout the nineteen-seventies and eighties, especially during periods of recession, employees were moved from offices to cubicles. Jill Lepore Read Quote
Desktop computers – boxes inside boxes – began appearing in those cubicles in the mid-eighties, electrical cords curling on the floor like so many ropes. Jill Lepore Read Quote
It feels silly to watch endless hours of winter sports every four years, when we never watch them any other time, and we don’t even understand the rules, which doesn’t stop us from scoring everyone, every run, every skate, every race. Jill Lepore Read Quote
The Olympics is an imperfect interregnum, the parade of nations a fantasy about a peace never won. It offers little relief from strife and no harbor from terror. Jill Lepore Read Quote
Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. Jill Lepore Read Quote
History’s written from what can be found; what isn’t saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by earth. Jill Lepore Read Quote
History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what to do next, which is why it’s worth trying to know where things come from. Jill Lepore Read Quote
Theories of history used to be supernatural: the divine ruled time; the hand of God, a special providence, lay behind the fall of each sparrow. If the present differed from the past, it was usually worse: supernatural theories of history tend to involve decline, a fall from grace, the loss of God’s favor, corruption. Jill Lepore Read Quote
