"In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these"
About this Quote
The line lands like a calm hand on a jittery shoulder: you are not crazy for feeling overwhelmed, and you are not the first. Paul Harvey built a career on translating national anxiety into something people could carry, and this sentence is classic Harvey: plainspoken, reassuring, and quietly persuasive. It works because it offers perspective without scolding, a form of emotional triage that turns panic into proportion.
The specific intent is containment. “In times like these” nods to whatever crisis is currently saturating the news cycle, but it refuses to dignify the moment as unprecedented. The second clause - “there have always been times like these” - is a gentle demotion of the present from apocalypse to chapter. It’s not optimism, exactly; it’s continuity. The subtext is: history is messy, humans are durable, and today’s dread is part of a recurring pattern rather than a final verdict.
Context matters. Harvey’s audience was mass-market, largely middle-American, tuned in through radio at moments when media already shaped collective nerves - war, inflation, crime panics, cultural upheaval. His style depended on narrative comfort: the sense that if you zoom out far enough, the country retains a recognizable shape. There’s also a rhetorical sleight of hand here: by framing crises as cyclical, the quote discourages both hysteria and radical solutions. That can be stabilizing, even humane, but it can also be anesthetic - a reminder that “we’ve been here before” can soothe while quietly absolving us of the urgency to change what keeps bringing us back.
The specific intent is containment. “In times like these” nods to whatever crisis is currently saturating the news cycle, but it refuses to dignify the moment as unprecedented. The second clause - “there have always been times like these” - is a gentle demotion of the present from apocalypse to chapter. It’s not optimism, exactly; it’s continuity. The subtext is: history is messy, humans are durable, and today’s dread is part of a recurring pattern rather than a final verdict.
Context matters. Harvey’s audience was mass-market, largely middle-American, tuned in through radio at moments when media already shaped collective nerves - war, inflation, crime panics, cultural upheaval. His style depended on narrative comfort: the sense that if you zoom out far enough, the country retains a recognizable shape. There’s also a rhetorical sleight of hand here: by framing crises as cyclical, the quote discourages both hysteria and radical solutions. That can be stabilizing, even humane, but it can also be anesthetic - a reminder that “we’ve been here before” can soothe while quietly absolving us of the urgency to change what keeps bringing us back.
Quote Details
| Topic | Tough Times |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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