Centre for Romanian Studies

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘H’

Happy:
“To punish others because they are happier than us, we inoculate them – short of anything better – with our anguish. Because our pain, alas, is not contagious.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Syllogismes de l’amertume”)

History:
“Neither confrontation nor isolationism are valid solutions. We know it too well, but in spite of it History pulls us backwards. I do not mean the real History but the History ensconced in our imagination. This style of History of Romanians presented as very different from the others, but at the same time persecuted by the others is a paradoxical combination of an illusory superiority with an obsessive complex of inferiority, which illustrate a state of mind totally unsuited to modern times. The insistent actualization of a glorified past and our abandonment to its temptations only perpetuates confrontation with regards to others and an immobilism with regards to ourselves. This is not a question of wiping from our memory the battlefields. But maybe one could decipher in them new meanings.”
(Lucian Boia, (b. 1944), (Historian, Writer)
(“History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness”,
Bucharest, Humanitas, 1997)

Historiography:
“It is true that for modern Europeans, the passion for Historiography arouses no presentiments of disaster. Nevertheless, seen in a religious perspective, it signifies the proximity of Death.”
(Mircea Eliade, (1907, Bucharest-Chicago, 1986),
Writer, Historian of Religions)
(“Myths, Dreams and Mysteries”, Harvill, 1960)

Hitler, Adolf:
“He looks like a bottle of mustard with a black label.”
(Marthe Bibesco, (1886-1973), Writer and Socialite)

Holiness:
“Holiness makes me uneasy for its trespassing of our misfortune, its barbarous charity, its pity without scruples.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Syllogismes de l’amertume”)

Honour:
“The preconception of honour is the product of a primitive society. It disappears with the advent of lucidity, with the rule of the cowards, of those who, having understood everything, they have nothing left to defend.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Syllogismes de l’amertume”)

Hope:
“Hope is the denial of the future.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Syllogismes de l’amertume”)

Hope:
“We are and we shall remain slaves so long as one has not got rid of the mania of hoping.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Ecartelement”)

Hour:
“A well spent hour is worth more than centuries and centuries of ignorance and neglect.”
(Eugene Ionesco (1912-1994), Dramatist, Exile)
(“Exit the King”)

Human Rights:
“The (Romanian) institutions which ought to have defended the rights of citizens had become instruments of intimidation and terror.”
(Mircea Dinescu (b. 1955), Poet, Journalist, Dissident)
(Interview given to the French Socialist newspaper
“Liberation”, March 1989)

Hungarian:
“I do not remember who once said – seriously- that Tisza Istavan had Romanian blood in his veins, God forbid! Whoever may have had a little of this blood would not have been able to play, with such calm and confidence, the role of Nero, the destroyer of a civilization for whose rise and development it is sure that other peoples have worked comparatively more than his own. A Romanian was the furious and passionate Banffy, descendant of the Transylvanian Bans whom he mentioned in his name. He, – Tisza, came with the qualities and defects of a cool, cruel reckoning of a race different from those whose representatives could use strong and high words – of a race which gave terror-stricken humanity to an Attila, a Gengis Khan and a Tamburlaine, all Turanians from the same steppes.”
(Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940), Historian, Prime Minister)
(A portrait of Count Tisza, Hungarian Prime Minister)

Hunger:
“Old people do not need so many calories.”
(Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989), Dictator)
(TV broadcast on exhorting the people to eat less
to adjust to the food shortages)

AUTHORS:
Marthe BIBESCO, Lucian BOIA, Nicolae CEAUSESCU, Emil CIORAN, Mircea ELIADE, Eugene IONESCO, Nicolae IORGA,

KEY WORDS:
Happy, Historiography, History, Hitler, Holiness, Honour, Hope, Hour, Human Rights, Hungarian, Hunger,

(Rendered in English by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2013 Copyright Constantin ROMAN)