Museums Quotes

“For all that people in power claim to care about looting, it doesn't seem to matter when it's museums doing it.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“The problem with museums [...] is that there's far too much art, so that no matter how well you plan your route or how noble your intentions, you will always find yourself walking irritably past priceless works of profound genius looking for the bathrooms.
And you feel slightly cheapened afterwards, like you've let yourself down - at least I do.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“History is everything that's already happened, right up to the moment you read these words. That's a lot to tackle for one museum, but not to worry, there are hundreds.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“Often, the story of an artifact’s journey is more remarkable than the object itself.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“Dreams are the museum for artists.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Oneironaut’s Diary

“Technology continues to be used to change the way we experience museums and the ways we learn and absorb information.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“When you make changes to preserve something, whether an artifact or an entire building, you risk altering the object and it’s history. However, if you don’t, you risk losing it entirely.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“Museums are preserving the past and propelling us into the future.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“How can we expect affluent white Southerners who control most plantation sites to tell the full and sometimes unsavory truth about their sites when the National Park Service does no better?”
― James W Loewen

“Museums preserve global and human history in a concrete way: they house the real thing.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“There is nothing like seeing the splendor of human creativity at work from museum architecture all the way down in scale to the tiniest of objects.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“At the end of the day, the most valuable things are not things, they are experiences, and museums foster experiences through things.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“Though science and art are at odds with one another—competing for academic attention—they work beautifully together in the world of museums.”
― Mackenzie Finklea, Beyond the Halls: An Insider's Guide to Loving Museums

“I believe very strongly that museums and libraries, at their best, help the public by defining reality and still giving hope.”
― Lonnie G. Bunch III

“For many museums and libraries, there's a fear about getting involved in the contemporary issue--that you'll be pulled into the partisan times. I think you're gonna be pulled in no matter what. So the key is you should really, I think, do the best work you can to help a nation be made better. Yes, you're not gonna say that we're Democrat or Republican; what you're saying is that for the greater good of a nation, here are some of the ways we can move forward.”
― Lonnie G. Bunch III

“I think that the most important thing we can do as cultural institutions, as learning institutions, is really help the public become more comfortable with ambiguity. As a nation, we really look for simple answers to complex questions, and you see where that's gotten us. I think that what you want to do is help people understand the shades of gray, the nuance, the debates. I think if we could do that, regardless of what history, what culture we're teaching people, what's important is if you can get people to grapple with complexity, then we'd be a better nation.”
― Lonnie G. Bunch III

“Museums suck," said Billy.

The bus rattled along between tan fields.

"Right?" said Charlie.

"History," said Higgins. "Shit like that.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“El problema de localizar fotografías confirma la indiferencia ante la presencia de las mujeres en la historia, cosa que se refleja constantemente en los medios, libros, archivos históricos, museos y bibliotecas universitarias.
The problem of locating photos often confirms the indifference to women’s presence in history, as reflected in the media, books, historical records, museums, university libraries.”
― Elizabeth Martínez, 500 Years of Chicana Women's History / 500 Años de la Mujer Chicana: Bilingual Edition

“The Thames is England's longest archaeological landscape and thousands of the objects that fill our museums have come from its foreshore. (p.47)”
― Lara Maiklem , Mudlark: In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames

“Journalist Tony Horwitz describes its laser show as an unfortunate mix of Coca-Cola, the Beatles, the Atlanta Braves, and Elvis sining "Dixie," followed by the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Television ads end with the inclusive slogan, "Stone Mountain: A Different Day for Everyone." Eventually the desire for everyone's dollar may accomplish what the physical elements cannot: eradicating Stone Mountain as a Confederate-KKK Shrine.”
― James Loewen

“Jefferson made no consistent effort to abolish slavery ... It would be nice if Jefferson were the photo-abolitionist that the memorial and the park service brochure pretend he was ... his memorial needs to be more complex than it is ... the National Park Service could supply the contexts missing from the juxtaposed questions on its panels. Then visitors could see Jefferson as a man who not only envisioned but also betrayed the hopes of mankind.”
― James Loewen

“Indeed, antebellum home sites go to extraordinary lengths to avoid mentioning slavery.”
― James Loewen

“Or consider the relative power of the three branches of government ... some political scientists claim that a fourth branch - the CIA, National Security Council, and other covert agencies - has developed in the last thirty years. The Constitution cannot save democracy when officials in the FBI, CIA, State Department, and undercover agencies determine not only our policies but also how much the people, the Congress, and perhaps even the president need to know about them.”
― James W Loewen

“For that matter, even if the owners and workers in a historic site had not included a president, most visitors would want to hear about the important events in their lives, not just about their furniture.”
― James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong

“This is why I paint," he says. "To get black men into museums.”
― Jennifer Clement

“Imagine if we natives went to the cemeteries in your cities and dug up your beloved relatives, pulled off rings, watches, and clothes, and called them "artifacts," then carried the bones over to the university for study so we could understand you. Consider that there are more bones of native people in universities and museums for study, than there are those of us living.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“Art, he felt, let him down. For great paintings he felt only respect. Museum spaces beckoned him in, even welcomed him, but then left him on his own.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“One day in the future someone will look at this period in history and wonder why there were so many people completely insane and self-destructing themselves. Why were so many filled with hatred, jealousy and resentment. Why were so many fighting for ideals that have no value, like flag colors, skin color, teams and objects. They will probably create museums to contemplate the insanity of humanity and those museums will be filled with horror and ruins, in the same way we now look at roman coliseums. And they will then treasure the truth more than anything, and every book created until then will be seen as nothing more than a memory that persisted in time.”
― Dan Desmarques

“Our lives are devoted to our absence—to the idea that no trace of ourselves should be left in our work.”
― Christine Coulson, Metropolitan Stories

“Melvin thought about the museum inhaling so much of the world—all that history, all that spiritual juice, all the passions and laments of each visitor—without ever really exhaling.”
― Christine Coulson, Metropolitan Stories