Fernand Braudel Quotes

Happiness, whether in business or private life, leaves little trace in history.

History may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all.

All history must be mobilized if one would understand the present.

There are always some areas world history does not reach, zones of silence and undisturbed ignorance.

Social science virtually abhors the event. Not without reason; the short-term is the most capricious and deceptive form of time.

The mere smell of cooking can evoke a whole civilization.

The earth is, like our own skin, fated to carry the scars of ancient wounds.

There were two, three or four French Revolutions. Like a multi-stage rocket today, the Revolution involved several successive explosions and propellant thrusts.

Leadership of a world-economy is an experience of power which may blind the victor to the march of history.

For a century, the Arabs tribes gave Islam the first of these victories. Then the rough mountain peoples of North Africa, the Berbers, helped it to conquer Spain and organize Fatimid Egypt.

Civilization is in fact the longest story of all. Civilization can persist through a series of economies.