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I’ve always been interested in foreign relations. It’s my belief that the study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it.

— Elizabeth Kostova The Historian (2005)

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Faith

More quotes by Elizabeth Kostova

And once you’ve seen that truth — really seen it — you can’t look away.

The Historian (2005)

Dracula is a metaphor for the evil that is so hard to undo in history.

Life’s better, sounder, when we don’t brood unnecessarily on horrors. As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.

The Historian (2005)

There is survival and survival, the historian learns to his grief. The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.

The Historian (2005)

In the Year of Our Lord 1456 Drakula did many terrible and curious things.

The Historian (2005)

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Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson Letter to Peter Carr (1787)

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

Colin Wilson Postscript to the Outsider (1967)

Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love."

Jonathan Edwards Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Elizabeth Kostova (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.