Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- History is shaped by a few powerful metaphors rather than complex details.
- In plain terms
- History is mostly a few big ideas repeated.
- What can you take from it?
- Big ideas shape how we see history.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What metaphors guide your view?
- How much of history is true?
Another view
Metaphors may hide important details.
More from Jorge Luis Borges
Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces belabored by time, certain twilights and certain places try to tell us something, or have said something we should…
Permalink to quote #94 In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli …
Permalink to quote #96 I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memor…
Permalink to quote #93
Related quotes
From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.
Grace HopperGrace Hopper quote #1 The Macedonian language is actually an artifact produced for primarily political reasons.
Vittore PisaniVittore Pisani quote #1 I assisted at the birth of that most significant word 'flirtation,' which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world.
Philip StanhopePhilip Stanhope quote #2