Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

I always shoot at privates. It was they who did the shooting and killing, and if I could kill a wound a private, why, my chances were so much the better. I always looked upon officers as harmless personages.

I am a citizen, not of Athens, or Greece, but of the world.

I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is.

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

I am not here for women only, but also for women.

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.

I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me.

I believe that history is capable of anything. There exists no folly that men have not tried out.

I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old.

I came into the world either too early or too late; at present, I am good for nothing.

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.

I do not like this word "bomb." It is not a bomb. It is a device that is exploding.

I can promise to be sincere, but I cannot promise to be impartial.

I couldn't say who I am, I haven't the remotest notion of myself; I am someone without antecedents, without a history, without a country, and on that I insist!

I counted them all out and I counted them all back.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god-sullen, untamed and intractable.

I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast-but for luncheon-for dinner- for tea-for supper-for between meals.

I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.

If conquerors be regarded as the engine-drivers of History, then the conquerors of thought are perhaps the pointsmen who, less conspicuous to the traveler's eye, determine the direction of the journey.

If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses, and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.

If a well-constituted individual refrains from blazoning aught amiss or calamitous in his family, a nation in the like circumstance may without reproach be equally discreet.

I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am.

I endeavor to make the most of everything.

If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.

If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.

If history is any guide at all, it seems to me to suggest that there is a final theory. In this century we have seen a convergence of the arrows of explanation, like the convergence of meridians toward the North Pole.

If given the choice between Righteousness and Peace, I choose Righteousness.

If History teaches any lesson at all, it is that there are no historical lessons.

If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.

If history offers no obvious solutions, however, it does at least provide the comfort of knowing that failure is nothing new.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.

If history is really relevant in today's world, the proposition doesn't command much respect. Perhaps the past is a different country, but if so no one much wants to travel there.

If I could have dinner with anyone who lived in history, it would depend on the restaurant.

If history were a photograph of the past it would be flat and uninspiring. Happily, it is a painting; and, like all works of art, it fails of the highest truth unless imagination and ideas are mixed with the paints.

If I'm going to Hell, I'm going there playing the piano.

If my people are wiped out you must destroy all photographs of us, because future generations will look at our photographs and be too ashamed at such a crime against humanity.

If Julian had flattered himself that his personal connexion with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians.

I find along with many virtues in my countrymen there is a jealousy, a soreness, and readiness to take offence, as if they were the most helpless and impotent of mankind, and yet a violence... and a boistrousness in their resentment, as if they had been puffed up with the highest prosperity and power. they will not only be served, but it must also be in their own way and on their own principles and even in words and language that they liked... which renders it very difficult for a plain unguarded man as I am to have anything to do with them or their affairs.

I find it hard even now not to look on your North African strategy with a jaundiced eye. Cross Channel operations for the liberation of France and advance on Germany, we should finish the war quicker. Yes, probably, but not the way we hope to finish it.

If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of acompletely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.

If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace.

If people could learn history, what lessons it might teach us!

If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled.

If [President Obama] does not go on the offensive against ISIS...they are coming here. This is just not about Baghdad, this is just not about Syria, this is about our homeland. And if we get attacked because he has no strategy to protect us, then he will have committed a blunder for the ages.

If the enemies of the SA are hoping that the SA will not return from leave, we are ready to let them enjoy the hope for a short time.

If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.

If this Punic war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates.