Twilight of History Quotes

“History is the most dangerous product that the chemistry of the mind has developed. Its properties are well known. It makes people dream; it intoxicates them and generates false remembrances; exaggerates their responses; keeps open old wounds; torments them in their rest; leads them to deliriums of grandeur or persecution; and makes nations bitter, proud, intolerable and vain.”
― Shlomo Sand, Twilight of History

“A living myth is not a lie; it is a story about the past or the future whose veracity cannot be established in a rational manner, yet that no one can imagine rejecting. It remains valid, in the eyes of believers, until heretics succeed in refuting it.”
― Shlomo Sand, Twilight of History

“All historical writing that is not aware that the actions and plots related do not coincide with past reality is potentially the bearer of a mythological dimension. It may well be a serious narrative full of references and quotations, distinguished by its “exactness” and abstaining from any polemic, yet it remains nonetheless that that belief of the author, whether naive or not, associates him or her with many propagators of myth history who continue to swell the tanks of discipline today.

A living myth is not a lie; it is a story about the past or the future whose veracity cannot be established in a rational manner, yet that no-one can imagine rejecting. It remains valid, in the eyes of believers, until heretics succeed in refuting it. Even in this case, however, the belief is not necessary shaken; myths in fact tend to preserve themselves as long as they are needed, or else until other myths come along to replace them. In history all societies need myths to ensure their coherence and preserve their collective identity, in particular, that of elites that revolve around the sovereign power.”
― Shlomo Sand, Twilight of History