Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

Peter Jones's is a vital public service. He reminds us that while we shouldn't live in the past, we are wiser and stronger when we live with it.

Philosophy alone can boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy), that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism.

Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchymy; and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth and the accidents of his life never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the Academy and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice of Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world and to posterity for the happiness of millions.

Philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.

Pierre Curie, a brilliant scientist, happened to marry a still more brilliant one-Marie, the famous Madame Curie-and is the only great scientist in history who is consistently identified as the husband of someone else.

Please go on, make your threats. I don't like to submit to mere implication.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Poetry is devil's wine.

Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to meter. The proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement, or communication of truth; the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of immediate pleasure.

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

Political and social history are in my view two aspects of the same process. Social life loses half its interest and political movements lose most of their meaning if they are considered separately.

Politics at all times lead to bloody wars, and not only politics, but also religions as well as social and economic systems of alltimes are spattered with blood. Invariably the big ones devoured the little ones, and the little ones the tiny ones.

Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics.

Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.

Postmodernism entices us with the siren call of liberation and creativity, but it may be an invitation to intellectual and moral suicide.

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

Preserve your history and become everlasting; receive new life from the times that have gone by.

Presume not that I am the thing I was.

Problems cannot all be solved, for, as they are solved, new aspects are continually revealed: the historian opens the way, he does not close it.

Progress needs the brakeman, but the brakeman should not spend all his time putting on the brakes.

Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.

Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.

Purely historical thought is therefore nihilistic: it wholeheartedly accepts the evil of history and in this way is opposed to rebellion.

Quite apart from any conscious program, the great cultural historians have always been historical morphologists: seekers after theforms of life, thought, custom, knowledge, art.

Quit thinking about what Bobby Lee's gonna do to us and start thinking about what we're going to do to him.

Rapid change of conditions in all human affairs bring unexpected results.

Radical historians now the tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey.

Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.

Rather an end in horror, than horror without end. He could not condemn principles he might need to invoke and apply later. The wolf cannot help having been created by God as he is, but we shoot him all the same if we have to. The great player in diplomacy, as in chess, asks the question,Does this improve me?, not look at the possible fringe benefits If you can't have what you like, you must like what you have.

Remember, God provides the best camouflage several hours out of every 24.

Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don't move; today is today, always is today.

Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized--the question involuntarily arises--to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.

Revolution calls my name. I will soon dwell in nothingness, and my name will be in the Pantheon of history.

Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.

Revisionism is a healthy historiographical process, and no one, not even revisionists, should be exempt from it.

Science, history and politics are not suited for discussion except by experts. Others are simply in the position of requiring more information; and, till they have acquired all available information, cannot do anything but accept on authority the opinions of those better qualified.

Sanity is madness put to good use.

Russians can give you arms but only the United States can give you a solution.

Science has penetrated the constitution of nature, and unrolled the mysterious pages of its history, and started again many, as yet, unanswered questions in respect to the mutual relations of matter and spirit, of nature and of God.

Secret Societies have existed among all peoples, savage and civilized, since the beginning of recorded history... It is beyond question that the secret societies of all ages have exercised a considerable degree of political influence.

Shiloh had as many casualties as Waterloo, and yet there were another 20 Waterloos to come.

September 11th was a moment when America had the sympathy of the world.

Shakespeare, who never could think up a plot by himself, found this one [Macbeth] in Holinshed's Chronicles, changing it just enough so that no one would recognize the source. He didn't count on the resourcefulness of modern scholars, who have to discover things like this to become associate professors.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

Selfness is an essential fact of life. The thought of nonselfness, precise sameness is terrifying.

Since history has no properly scientific value, its only purpose is educative. And if historians neglect to educate the public, if they fail to interest it intelligently in the past, then all their historical learning is valueless except in so far as it educates themselves.