A Quote by Eamon Duffy

History is tangled, messy, contradictory. But is where we are.

Eamon Duffy

Quote Topics

Contradictory History Messy Tangled

Quote Author

Eamon Duffy
Irish - Historian
Born: February 9, 1947

Emotion is messy, contradictory... and true.

Nigella Lawson

Each building has to be beautiful, but cheap and fast, but it lasts forever. That is already an incredible battery of seemingly contradictory demands. So yes, I'm definitely perhaps contradictory person, but I operate in very contradictory times.

Rem Koolhaas

[B]inary opposites fit nicely the formulation of history as written, but they do little to capture the messy, inchoate reality of history as lived.

Ira Berlin

I am opposing it with an idea of the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers, that is, a history of mortal, fragile and limited creatures like you and I. I am against the idea of clean, clearly distinct epochs in the history of philosophy or indeed in anything else. I think that history is always messy, contingent, plural and material. I am against the constant revenge of idealism in how we think about history.

Simon Critchley

Why are people so fascinated by how to eat Valomilks?’ She said, ‘Well, Dad, they’re round and they’re messy. But that’s what makes them fun. Once we get older we’re not supposed to be messy anymore. But for one moment when you’re eating a Valomilk, it’s okay to be messy again.

Steve Almond

"Tangled Up in Blue," shifts perspective several times during the song to tell a "tangled" version of [Bob] Dylan's marriage and dissolution.

Bob Dylan

The way we live history is not the way historians tell history. Our lives are messy and chaotic and bewildering.

David Grann

Spiritual growth is more than procedure, it’s a wild search for God in the midst of the tangled jungle of our souls, a search for which involves a volatile mix of messy reality, wild freedom, frustrating stuckness, increasing slowness and a healthy dose of gratitude

Mike Yaconelli

History is a tangled skein that one may take up at any point, and break when one has unravelled enough.

Henry Adams

History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.

John W. Gardner

I think it is optimistic and positive - it's quite contradictory in that sense - from the lyrics. Until you actually read them, maybe they can seem contradictory.

Faris Badwan

When you love people like Jesus, you get messy. But messy looks good on you!

Bob Goff

People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don't be surprised by messiness.

Timothy Keller

I love having messy hair. I put in a lot of effort to have it look as messy as possible.

Kristin Kreuk

The Catholic Church with its foreshortened American history and tangled puritanical roots was as inviolate to my mother and father as it was to the last-ditch aristocrats of Evelyn Waugh.