The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
Interpretation
History and experiences that are not documented are often overlooked, just like a tree that falls silently in a forest.
Barbara Tuchman's quote reflects on the significance of the unrecorded past, suggesting that events and experiences that do not leave a mark on history are often forgotten, much like a tree that falls in a forest without anyone to witness it. This metaphor emphasizes the idea that our understanding of the world is shaped not only by what is documented but also by countless moments and events that go unnoticed, reminding us to value the entirety of our past, recorded or not.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of oral history, I used this quote to emphasize the value of personal stories.
In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.
One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
His [Erwin Schrödinger's] private life seemed strange to bourgeois people like ourselves. But all this does not matter. He was a most lovable person, independent, amusing, temperamental, kind and generous, and he had a most perfect and efficient brain.
With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
If you find life absurd, shouldn’t you find death precisely meaningful?
The materialistic pattern of life is that where money predominates over everything. The non-materialistic life is that where money is just a means - happiness predominates, joy predominates; your own individuality predominates. You know who you are and where you are going, and you are not distracted. Then suddenly you will see your life has a meditative quality to it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.