Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

In analysing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.

In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.

In a word, we may gather out of History a policy no less wise than I eternal; by the comparison and application of other mens fore-passed miseries with our own like errours and ill-deservings.

In becoming archaeologists of the world of our mothers, we are trying to retrieve the female past and to invent a future.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

Indeed, the Englishman's history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.

India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.

Inertia is the first law of history, as it is of physics.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

In expressing briefly my views upon an important subject which has recently agitated the nation..., I fervently hope that the question is at rest and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions.

In fact, the answer to the question "What is mathematics?" has changed several times during the course of history... It was only in the last twenty years or so that a definition of mathematics emerged on which most mathematicians agree: mathematics is the science of patterns.

Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it.

... in going over the history of all the inventions for which history could be obtained it became more and more clear that in addition to training and in addition to extensive knowledge, a natural quality of mind was also necessary.

In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology.

In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.

In its Greek origins, historia meant inquiry, and from Thucydides onwards, the past has been studied to understand its connections with the present.

In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth.

In many ways Nazism was antithetical to what the great mass of Germans said they admired - and certainly to what they paid homage. It was noisy, undisciplined, vainglorious; its leader was a half-educated posturing foreigner. For a decade the National Socialists were regarded as hoodlums, as part of the breakdown of what had been, if anything, an excessively ordered society before.

In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.

In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspaper should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.

In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met with by the way

In prison we are their jailers On trial their judges Persecuted their punishers Dead their conquerors

In schoolbooks and in literature we can separate ecclesiastical and political history; in the life of mankind they are intertwined.

In popular government results worth while can only be achieved by men who combine worthy ideals with practical good sense.

In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life.

In Stalin's Russia racial persecution was often disguised as class warfare. More than 1.5 million members of ethnic minorities died as a result of forced resettlement.

In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.

Instead of pressing, with the foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople, Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference; required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment of a friend.

In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender's hold by upsetting his balance.

Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind.

In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures.

In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.

In the history of the individual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself to be a party to his present estate.

In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.

In the last resort, sheer insight is the greatest asset of all.

In the long course of history, having people who understand your thought is much greater security than another submarine.

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

In the United States those bits of our history that remain are paved over, sanitized, packaged for easy consumption. At those sites not already lost to commercial development, we walk between velvet ropes, herded by guides, warned not to touch. Our icons are preserved under glass, their magic demystified in glossy brochures.

In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers.

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

I shall show the cinders of my spirits Through the ashes of my chance.

I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past-can't be restored.

Is he a good man?" "Define 'good'.

Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.

Is not that state a warning and a judgment for our heavy sins as a nation?

I still feel-kind of temporary about myself.

Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses.

Italy is only a geographical expression.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.