"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
This quote emphasizes the importance of facts and evidence in decision-making, reasoning, and understanding the world. It suggests that regardless of personal desires, opinions, or feelings, the truth remains unchanged by individual perspectives. In other words, it's a reminder to prioritize objectivity, factual accuracy, and evidence over subjective biases when seeking knowledge or making informed decisions.
"The past is never where you think you left it."
Stacy Schiff's quote, "The past is never where you think you left it," suggests that our memories and understanding of the past are often distorted or inaccurate due to the passage of time, personal biases, and selective recall. The past we remember is not a static, unchanging entity but rather an evolving narrative that shifts based on our experiences, emotions, and perspectives. This quote encourages us to approach history with humility and recognize its fluidity, reminding us that the pursuit of truth is an ongoing process.
"History is a field in which amateurs must not only content themselves with second-hand information but must be second-rate in their interpretation of it."
Stacy Schiff's quote underscores the importance of expertise in historical analysis. She implies that those without formal training or extensive knowledge in history may rely on secondary sources, limiting their understanding and potential for accurate interpretation. This doesn't devalue individual interest in history but emphasizes the need for a rigorous approach to understanding the past accurately. It serves as a reminder that historical insights are best gained through critical thinking, diligent research, and professional experience.
"The most potent words are always the simplest."
Stacy Schiff's quote underscores the power and effectiveness of straightforward language in communication. Simplicity can often carry the greatest impact, as it allows ideas to be easily understood and remembered by an audience. The challenge lies in crafting clear, concise expressions that convey complex thoughts and emotions effectively without unnecessary complexity or jargon.
"Truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder."
This quote suggests that truth, like beauty, can be subjective and vary from person to person. It implies that one's understanding or perception of truth is not universally accepted or objective, but rather relative to their personal beliefs, experiences, and perspectives. In essence, the quote emphasizes that what seems true to some might appear false to others.
Certainly, I am writing as a 21st-century woman, so I am much more inclined to view her as a three-dimensional woman. I think we keep coming up with this stubborn problem of a woman being judged by her appearance rather than her accomplishments. We are much more inclined to ask: was Cleopatra beautiful?
- Stacy Schiff
Here you have an incredibly ambitious, accomplished woman who comes up against some of the same problems that women in power come up against today. Cleopatra plays an oddly pivotal role in world history as well; in her lifetime, Alexandria is the center of the universe, Rome is still a backwater.
- Stacy Schiff
For the several thousands of years before they became firefighters and physicians, women were sirens, enchantresses, snares. At times it seems as if female powerlessness is male self-preservation in disguise. And for millennia, this has made for a zero-sum game: A woman's intelligence was a man's deception.
- Stacy Schiff
Strangely enough, politics may just be the one realm in which having kids imposes no penalty on women. Kids are practically a necessity. For scientists, or Supreme Court justices, or chief executives, or the woman who wants to learn to fly F-l8s off an aircraft carrier, it works differently.
- Stacy Schiff
Recently a study proved that working from a larger, less cluttered computer screen increases concentration. I could have told them that. And yes, I write first drafts with a mechanical pencil and a yellow legal pad. There's good reason for this primitive behavior: I am a crackerjack typist. My hand moves far more quickly than my brain.
- Stacy Schiff
We don't know how Cleopatra spent her days, but we do know how other Hellenistic monarchs spent their days. There has been a great amount of scholarship in the last 30 years about education in the Hellenistic world and women in the Hellenistic world. We now know how an upper-class woman was educated in her day.
- Stacy Schiff
I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: 'There's no further new material; there are only new questions.'
- Stacy Schiff
Life-writing calls for any number of dubious gifts: A touch of O.C.D., a lack of imagination, a large desk, neutrality of Swiss proportions, tactlessness, a high tolerance for archival dust. Most of all it calls for an act of displacement. 'To find your subject, you must in some sense lose yourself along the way,' is Richard Holmes's version.
- Stacy Schiff
We're talking about, essentially, the Roman historians, who wrote Cleopatra into the story mostly so that they could talk about the rise of Rome. And that is one of the problems, of course, in recounting her life. She's only ever apparent to us when there is a Roman in the room, or when her story intersects with the rise of Rome.
- Stacy Schiff
From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra's irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will - really a great political genius, in that respect.
- Stacy Schiff
For a few thousand years, women had no history. Marriage was our calling, and meekness our virtue. Over the last century, in stuttering succession, we have gained a voice, a vote, a room, a playing field of our own. Decorously or defiantly, we now approach what surely qualifies as the final frontier.
- Stacy Schiff
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