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It is as difficult to reach a common original for all existing linguistic forms as it is to find a common ancestry for the cave dwellers of Western Europe, the native Australians, the blubber-eating Esquimaux, and the flint-chipping barbarians of Polynesia.

— John Clark Ridpath Ridpath's History of the World (1897)

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More quotes by John Clark Ridpath

True history is the generalized result of all things that have been thought and done by men.

Ridpath's History of the World (1897)

It might be said, even at this late day, that the whole intellectual structure of the world rests on the concrete of tradition.

Ridpath's History of the World (1897)

Above all other branches of knowledge, history sits and broods, with wings outspread as though the universe of things were pregnant and must bring forth under the shadow and power of thought.

Ridpath's History of the World (1897)

The line of division is made on the principle that the remains of what man has done shall fall to archaeology, and the remains of what man was to anthropology.

Ridpath's History of the World (1897)

Man is a speaking animal. No other characteristic of his nature is more universal or prevailing. Speech is the invariable index of the intellectual and moral condition of the human kind.

Ridpath's History of the World (1897)

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