History is neither written nor made without love or hate.
Interpretation
History is shaped by human emotions, specifically love and hate.
The quote by Theodor Mommsen emphasizes that history is profoundly influenced by the powerful emotions of love and hate. These emotions drive human actions and decisions that ultimately carve out our historical narrative, suggesting that the motivation behind events plays a crucial role in shaping the course of history.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a discussion on the motivations behind historical events.
An independent state does not pay too dear a price for its independence in accepting the sufferings of war when it cannot avoid them; a state which has lost its independence may find at least some compensation in the fact that its protector procures for it peace with its neighbours.
The history of Rome presents various men of greater genius than Scipio Aemilianus, but none equalling him in moral purity, in the utter absence of political selfishness, in generous love of his country, and none, perhaps, to whom destiny has assigned a more tragic part.
History has a Nemesis for every sin.
Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Show me a movement that doesn't hate somebody and I will join it at once.
A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas...
When a man's home is born out of his heart and developed through his labor and perfected through his sense of beauty, it is the very cornerstone of life.
Every great thinker is someone else's moron.
Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?
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