Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

But also out here in this dreary, difficult war, I think history will record that this may have been one of Americas finest hours, because we took a difficult task and we succeeded.

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.

But in the intellectual world, there is room for all opposing forces: even that which never appears victorious in the real world continues to be effective as a dynamic force (in the intellectual world) and precisely the unfulfilled ideals prove to be the most invincible.

But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.

But one sound always rose above the clamor of busy life and, no matter how much of a tintinnabulation, was never confused and, fora moment lifted everything into an ordered sphere: that of the bells.

But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition.

But then history does not only consist of documents.

But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.

But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord; nor can it reasonably be presumed that the restoration of British freedom was exempt from tumult and faction. The pre-eminence of birth and fortune must have been frequently violated by bold and popular citizens; and the haughty nobles, who complained that they were become the subjects of their own servants, would sometimes regret the reign of an arbitrary monarch.

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral of physical government of the world.

But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian.

But without Adolf Hitler, who was possessed of a demonic personality, a granite will, uncanny instincts, a cold ruthlessness, a remarkable intellect, a soaring imagination and - until the end, when, drunk with power and success, he overreached himself - an amazing capacity to size up people and situations, there almost certainly would never have been a Third Reich.

by operating on the principle of human and material obsolescence, America eats her history alive.

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.

Certainly I shall use the police, and most ruthlessly, whenever the German people are hurt. But I refuse the notion that the police are protective troops for Jewish stores. No, the police protect whoever comes into Germany legitimately, but it does not exist for the purpose of protecting Jewish money-lenders.

Change is scientific; progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

By law of periodical repetition, everything which has happened once must happen again and again -- and not capriciously, but at regular periods, and each thing in its own period, not another's and each obeying its own law.

Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite.

Clio may be the most austere and chaste of the Muses, but she has been known to come down informally from Mount Helicon in a mood so raffish that there are those who claim to have seen her with her slip showing.

Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was then the most powerful monarchy in the world housed its sovereigns in a converted leper hospital, yet, at the same time, parliament provided the magnificent palaces of Chelsea and Greenwich as hospitals for retired soldiers and sailors.

Completeness is rare in history.

Conservation means development as much as it does protection. A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.

Continue to instruct the world; and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations.

Conventional history completely ignores half the human race.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised; honours, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the catholic church.

Crassus was in the habit of maintaining that nobody should be called rich who was not able to maintain an army on his income.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.

Crown Prince Rupprecht, the heir to the throne of Bavaria who commanded the army group facing the British at the Somme, was the senior direct lineal heir of James Stuart, the Old Pretender of 1715. Had there been any Jacobites left in Britain in 1916, they would have had to regard this south German prince as their rightful king.

Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.

Dad, I'm in some trouble. There's been an accident and you're going to hear all sorts of things about me from now on. Terrible things.

Comfort is the only thing our civilization can give us.

Charles was constitutionally incapable of being a constitutional monarch.

Darkest of all Decembers ever has my life known, Sitting here by the embers, stunned, helpless, alone.

Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.

Delusion about history is a serious matter; it can gravely affect the history that is waiting to be made.

Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.

Despise Your enemy stragetically, but take him seriously tactically

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Did a sense of shame ever reside in our Republican toadies? You can't stop people who are never embarrassed by themselves. Will's readiness to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse can be cited as world class sycophancy.

Director Ken Burns revealed that his next documentary is about Franklin Roosevelt, and it's fourteen hours long...which sounds like too much, until you realize there's been over thirty hours of TV dedicated to Honey Boo Boo.

Discontent is the seed of ethics.

Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

Don't assume you have to be extraordinary to be used by God. You don't have to have exceptional gifts, talents, abilities, or connections. God specializes in using ordinary people whose limitations and weaknesses make them ideal showcases for His greatness and glory.