Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
Alan BennettRead
History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that history often overlooks the contributions of women, depicting them as merely supportive figures. It highlights the inability of society to properly recognize and celebrate women's roles in history.
Alan Bennett's quote provides a critical reflection on the traditional narrative of history that predominantly features male achievements while marginalizing the significant contributions of women. By comparing history to a commentary on men's incapabilities, he critiques how history is often written from a biased perspective. The metaphor of 'women following behind with the bucket' suggests that women's roles, often relegated to the background, are essential yet undervalued, emphasizing a call for a more inclusive historical narrative that acknowledges the integral part women play in shaping society.
Themes
HistoryWomenSocietyIncapabilitiesGender
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on gender representation in history, this quote can be used to illustrate the overlooked narratives of women.
More from Alan Bennett
All quotes βTo begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
Alan BennettRead
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
Alan BennettRead
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
Alan BennettRead
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
Alan BennettRead
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
Alan BennettRead
Similar quotes
Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.
Octavio PazRead
Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
Science only answers the question, How does it work? Or at most, What's there? Science asks what and how, philosophy asks why, myth and religion ask who. Who's in charge here? Who's the author? That's what we really long to know.
Peter KreeftRead
Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, and - as the snake from its skin, the butterfly from its chrysalis - emerges from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness.
Annie BesantRead
I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.
Mario PuzoRead
If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.
George Bernard ShawRead