The synagogues of late antiquity and the early medieval period were built around imagery: imagery of remembering the Temple, but also of the celestial zodiac, too. Simon Schama antiquitybuildcelestial Change image and share on social
History is admirably dangerous. It is not the soft option. Teachers need to be grown up and brave. Sensitivity is fine, but it stops at the door of honest narrative. Simon Schama admirablybravedangerous Change image and share on social
The difficulty with poetry is that it doesn't have the life that Shakespeare or Jane Austen have beyond the page. You can't make a costume drama out of it. There's no place for it to go except trapped inside its little book. Simon Schama austenbookcostume share on social
My mother was an awful cook, an exceptionally awful kosher cook, but I stayed kosher until I got to college, even though I'd long stopped believing in God. Simon Schama awfulbelievecollege Change image and share on social
A generation without history is a generation that not only loses a nation's memory but loses a sense of what it's like to be inside a human skin. Simon Schama generationhistoryhuman Change image and share on social
In the Einstein way, I can't believe in a universe that doesn't have some sort of prime mover, identical with all of created nature. I have a whole lot of a harder time with supposing the fine print of the Torah was a direct revelation. Simon Schama createdirecteinstein share on social
The Jews invented a portable religion in the shape of the Bible, the Torah, and eventually the Talmud, and with other portable forms of writing. So it's now possible to carry the religion, that is embedded in that writing, away from the ruins of political and military power. Simon Schama biblecarryembed share on social
The challenge for a nonfiction writer is to achieve a poetic precision using the documents of truth but somehow to make people and places spring to life as if the reader was in their presence. Simon Schama achievechallengedocument Change image and share on social
The notion that religion can actually be something... attached to progressivism seems so bizarre. But all you have to say is that Abolition wouldn't have happened without it. The way in which African Americans managed to achieve a degree of self-determination was through the church. Simon Schama abolitionachieveafrican share on social
Silence, this will surprise you not, isn't really a Jewish concept. Simon Schama conceptjewishsilence Change image and share on social
