Bettany Hughes Quotes (1967-)

“As a society we can tolerate questions when things are going well, but when things are going badly we want answers.”

“[E]ven though, like it or not, women occupy fifty percent of the human story genetically — I as a historian — I noticed that we only occupy about naught point five percent of official, written record in human history. But, my God, we are there.”

“I was the first female historian to present a history series on TV in the UK in the year 2000. Extraordinary. I had no idea... I did the Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture on BBC2 and said, "Can you find out who was the first?" They said, "It's you." Young girls write to me all the time to say they want to do things like me and it’s the best thing. It makes everything worthwhile. People ask, what's my proudest moment? That response is…”

“I for one (I am sure there are others) rail against the increasingly mediated world we live in, where experience comes packages and second-hand. But we must acknowledge that the majority of the global population will not have the opportunity to visit Trinity Hall, Cambridge to see a 15th-centry representation of Helen of Troy, or travel to Athens to visit the Kerameikos Museum, or cross the Isthmus Canal to appreciate Corinth's strategic importance. Nor will they have the time in their working day to sit in a quiet room and spend an uninterrupted morning reading and digesting an academic publication as academics can (sometimes).”