When the hour and the real cause has come, the infection flashes like an electric spark over hundreds of miles. … The message goes through the air, and, in the one thing that counts all men are suddenly of one mind even if only in a blind conviction: Things must change.
Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (1818–1897) Swiss historian
“The Crises of History” (1869)
Quotations by:
Burckhardt, Jacob Christoph
The people no longer believe in principles, but will probably periodically believe in saviors.
Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (1818–1897) Swiss historian
(Attributed)
History is the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.
Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (1818–1897) Swiss historian
Judgments on History and Historians, Introduction [tr. Zohn (1958)]