Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means you fought and won your inner battle against fears and restrictions

I'm accustomed to reading Georgian and Victorian letters and sometimes you simply know in your gut that a blithe sentence is covering up a deeper emotion.

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means you developed endurance, perseverance and will-to-win as a core part of your character

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means you didn’t stop just because the way was hard, rather you found solutions to problems

Il segreto più profondo di Olimpia è racchiuso in quest'unica nota cristallina: lottare è un gioco, vivere è un gioco, morire è un gioco; profitti e perdite non sono che distinzioni passeggere, ma il gioco pretende tutte le nostre forze, e la sorte accetta, come posta, unicamente i nostri cuori.

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means a man has overcame the obstacles, hassles and roadblocks

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means that a man has successfully graduated through the process of inner self-development

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means you were not concerned with conquering the world as much as you were dedicated with conquering yourself

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means you continually engaged in educating yourself, undertaking and fulfilling your responsibility and learned never to give up regardless of your circumstances

I made my name”. What does this mean? It means you developed the traits that are specific to successful people, passion- the ability to stay focus focused and the determination to never, never, never give up

..., imagine a loamy earth that starts with genocide, then adds a mix of further disease, wars, hurricanes, murder, great fires, dueling, insurrection and slavery, just to name a few of the many instances of tragedy. What dark seed would take root in such a disturbed and twisted soil?

Imagine a society entirely absorbed in its own historicity. It would be incapable of producing historians. Living entirely under the sign of the future, it would satisfy itself with automatic self-recording processes and auto-inventory machines, postponing indefinitely the task of understanding itself

Imagine, Dracula a pawn in the hands of the infidel. I wasted no time there-I learned everything I could about them, so that I might surpass them all. That was when I vowed to make history, not to be its victim.

Imagine standing in a room in a large museum. As you look around the dimly lit gallery, you begin to recognize shapes: a basket, an arrow, a beautifully decorated carving, a shield. Some of the objects are unrecognizable to you. What if these objects could speak? What would they tell you about themselves? How have they been used? Where did they come from? How did they get to this museum? Whom do they belong to?

I make up as little as possible. I spend a great deal of time on research, on finding all the available accounts of a scene or incident, finding out all the background details and the biographies of the people involved there, and I try to run up all the accounts side by side to see where the contradictions are and to look where things have gone missing. And it's really in the gap - it's in the erasures - that I think the novelist can best go to work because inevitably in history in any period, we know a lot about what happened, but we may be far hazier on why it happened. And there's always the question, why did it happen the way it did? Where was the turning point?

I’m all for real equality for everyone. Especially, women, in fact, just the other day a female friend and I came to the unmitigated conclusion that world history proves that God is definitely a woman.

I’m all for real equality for everyone especially, women. In fact, just the other day a female colleague and I came to the conclusion that human history and the current state of the world proves that God is definitely a woman.

I'm a student of 'istory, which is a bit of the same thing. We learn it so we don't repeat it. Ye've seen things now that no one would believe, and ye'll 'ave to live with the knowledge. There's good in what ye've learned, but there's danger in it, too. It'll be the mark of yer character 'ow ye choose to use what ye know.

I'm bringing this up because I knew that things like this happen to people, but by people, I didn't mean us.

I'm drawn to the 1950s for lots of reasons - everything from the fashion to the increasing sense of freedom and modernity that builds throughout the decade.

I mean, I don't know much about the Civil War, but whenever I think of that time—I mean, ever since Gone With the Wind I've had these fantasies about those generals, those gorgeous young Southern generals with their tawny mustaches and beards, and hair in ringlets, on horseback. And those beautiful girls in crinoline and pantalettes. You would never know that they ever fucked, from all you're able to read." She paused and squeezed my hand. "I mean, doesn't it just do something to you to think of one of those ravishing girls with that crinoline all in a fabulous tangle, and one of those gorgeous young officers—I mean, both of them fucking like crazy?" "Oh yes," I said with a shiver, "oh yes, it does. It enlarges one's sense of history.

I'm gonna achieve my dreams in Fantasy Writing.

I might, indeed, read history; but whenever I attempt to do so, I am to tell you the truth, driven from it by disgust—What is it, but a miserably mortifying detail of crimes and follies?—of the guilt of a few, and the sufferings of many, while almost every page offers an argument in favor of what I never will believe—that heaven created the human race only to destroy itself.

I miss those days even though I wasn't alive.

I’m interested in connecting with readers and strangers through poetry. I want to create real intimacy with my poems. Whether I do that through pulling from my personal life or using my fantasy life—or say history, whether that history is personal history or our collective histories—what’s important is that an experience is created. An experience that will hopefully matter to people and feel real. I want my poems to move people and make them want to live their lives, however complicated and impossible those lives may be. I think a poem can speak to the life you currently live but also to the lives you’ve lived before, the ones to come and also those you’ve yet to imagine. What else can do that? Not sex or money or other people.

I'm not the only person who carries a lot of assumptions when I read the Bible, and it can be tough to entertain the idea that the Word of God has different perspectives in it. Biblical apologists spend all their time weaving these different viewpoints into a single frame, in an effort that often looks like squids playing Twister: fascinating, appalling, and hard to follow. We've seen what this approach to history can sow: a destructive oversimplification of the Church's past. Americans treat their national narrative in much this way, too. We simplistically teach a single story in our history classrooms, of brave rebels who left cultures of tyranny and heroically crossed the Atlantic to found a nation built on freedom and justice. When we speak of our national sins, such as the genocide committed on Nation Americans or the brutal, longterm economic extraction of wealth from black bodies via slavery and segregation, we seem to dismiss these troubling matters as things that happened in the remote past but that have been resolved today.

Improving upon nature is the very essence of plant breeding, and so it goes to the heart of one of the central debates of the human condition: the relationship between humanity and nature and the degree to which the human race has a right (or indeed a responsibility) to change plant life for its own ends.

I must say that the charm of the Arctic, its infinite diversity, its aloofness from the rest of the world, made it a field which gives its own reward. Only those who have seen the magnificent sunsets over the ice, who have…been buffeted by storms… can appreciate the spell which always draws us back there.

I'm working on this book on the trial of Socrates. It started out with the idea of the problem of freedom of thought...and expression...I started by spending a year on the English Seventeenth Century Revolutions, and I had a fascinating time. And then I felt I couldn't understand the English Seventeenth Century Revolutions without understanding the Reformation. When I got to the Reformation, I felt that I had to understand the premonitory movements that began in the Middle Ages. When I got there, I felt I had to understand the classical period." (quoted in Andrew Patner, I. F. Stone: A Portrait, p. 21)

In 1546 a band of weevils were tried for damaging church vineyards in St Julien. Such trials were rife in the sixteenth century, and the distinguished French lawyer Bartholomew Chassenée rose to fame as an advocate for animals. His work is commemorated in Julian Barnes's mischievous short story 'The Wars of Religion', in which excommunication is sought for a colony of woodworm which had gnawed away the supporting legs of the Bishop of Besançon's throne, causing him to be 'hurled against his will into a state of imbecility'.

In 1646, the king recognized John Aylett’s heroism by adding distinguished symbols to his coat-of-arms—including a canton, the Rose of England and a crest depicting an arm holding a sword.

In 1859, the author Samuel Smiles published a book called Self-Help. (It's the first known use of the term.) In it, he explains that perseverance is the key to success. Accomplished people work harder than regular people. Success is anyone's for the taking. All you have to do was drill down-- get up earlier, stay up later, and apply yourself. Carnegie applied this same ethos to popularity. Anyone can be popular if they smile a lot and perfect the art of the compliment. All self-help, Carnegie included, promises that the world isn't rigged. That no dream is too big. That we can re-create ourselves to be prettier, smarter, more productive and more likable. Self-help recasts personality traits as skills. It posits that anything can be learned.

In 1830 Belgium became independent after an opera performance; in 1959 Congo demands independence after a soccer match.

In 1914, Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian imperial heir, was shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. Do you know the motive behind the act? It was in retaliation for the subjugation of the Sebs in Austria. It was not.Franz Ferdinand had stated his intention to introduce reforms favorable to the Serbs in his empire. Had he survived to ascend the throne, he would have made a revolution unnecessary. In plain terms, he was killed because he was going to give the rebels what they were shouting for. They needed a despot in the palace in order to seize it. What's good for reform is bad for the reformers

In 303 CE, the Roman emperor Diocletian declared war on the Christian church and instigated the most massive persecution it ever endured. In 312 CE, the emperor Constantine himself converted to become a Christian. In 391 to 392 CE, the vehemently orthodox Christian Theodosius declared all pagan practices illegal and in effect made Christianity the state religion of Rome. With the growth of Christianity came moments of heightened intolerance. Sometimes this intolerance erupted in ugly acts of violence, suppression, and coercion. Christians were not, of course, the only intolerant people on the planet. They themselves had been the victims of violent coercion early in the century.

In 1553, Santiago de Cuba was invaded and plundered by the French. They were followed by the British, led by Sir Christopher Myngs in 1662-1663. The British considered him an Admiral, but to the Spanish he was a pirate, when he broke through the strong Spanish defenses to plunder and sack the city. Santiago lost its status as the capitol of Cuba, when the seat of power was moved to Havana in 1589, but many people to this day, feel that it is still the capitol city when it comes to culture. Of course, anyone from La Habana would vehemently disagree with this!

In 1821, the United States government sent Dr. Eli Ayres to West Africa to buy, on what was known as the “Pepper Coast,” land that could be used as a colony for relocated slaves from America. He sailed to the location on the Mesurado River aboard the naval schooner USS Alligator, commanded by Lieutenant Robert Stockton. When they arrived, Stockton forced the sale of some land at gunpoint, from a local tribal chief named King Peter. Soon after this sale was consummated, returned slaves and their stores were landed as colonists on Providence and Bushrod Islands in the Montserado River. However, once the USS Alligator left the new colonists, they were confronted by King Peter and his tribe. It took some doing but on April 25, 1822 this group moved off the low lying, mosquito infested islands and took possession of the highlands behind Cape Montserado, thereby founding present day Monrovia. Named after U.S. President James Monroe, it became the second permanent African American settlement in Africa after Freetown, Sierra Leone. Thus the colony had its beginnings, but not without continuing problems with the local inhabitants who felt that they had been cheated in the forced property transaction. With the onset of the rainy season, disease, shortage of supplies and ongoing hostilities, caused the venture to almost fail. As these problems increased, Dr. Ayres wanted to retreat to Sierra Leone again, but Elijah Johnson an African American, who was one of the first colonial agents of the American Colonization Society, declared that he was there to stay and would never leave his new home. Dr. Eli Ayres however decided that enough was enough and left to return to the United States, leaving Elijah and the remaining settlers behind. The colony was nearly lost if it was not for the arrival of another ship, the U.S. Strong carrying the Reverent Jehudi Ashmun and thirty-seven additional emigrants, along with much needed stores. It didn’t take long before the settlement was identified as a “Little America” on the western coast of Africa. Later even the flag was fashioned after the American flag by seven women; Susannah Lewis, Matilda Newport, Rachel Johnson, Mary Hunter, J.B. Russwurm, Conilette Teage, and Sara Dripper. On August 24, 1847 the flag was flown for the first time and that date officially became known as “Flag Day.” With that a new nation was born!

In a city it's impossible to forget we live in places raised and built over time itself. The past is underneath our feet. Every day when I leave the house , I may walk over a place where a king killed a wolf in the Royal Forest of Stocket, one of the medieval hunting forests ,where alder and birch , oak and hazel,willow, cherry and aspen grew. The living trees were cut down , their wood used to fuel the city's growth , it's trade, it's life.The ancient wood ,preserved in peat, was found underneath the city(The site of the killing is fairly well buried -the wolf and the king had their encounter some time around the early years of the eleventh century)It's the same as in any other city, built up and over and round , ancient woodlands cut down , bogs drained , watercourses altered, a landscape rendered almost untraceable, vanished.Here, there's a history of 8,000 years of habitation , the evidence in excavated fish hooks and fish bone reliquaries, in Bronze Age grave-goods of arrowheads and beakers, what's still under the surface, in revenants and ghosts of gardens , of doo'cots and orchards, of middens and piggeries, plague remains and witch-hunts, of Franciscans and Carmelites, their friaries buried , over-taken by time and stone .This is a stonemasons' city , a city of weavers and gardeners and shipwrights and where I walk , there was once a Maison Dieu, a leper house; there was song schools and sewing schools, correction houses and tollboths, hidden under layers of time, still there

In addition to the American officers, walking around the bustling camp were French and British officers who lectured the wide-eyed teenagers about the conditions in the trenches on the Western Front. The foreign officers told stories of the terrible battles of Ypres, the Somme, and Verdun. Roy listened with awe and foreboding to the danger from unseen enemies firing shell after shell, the muddy lines of trenches, the heroic acts of men disregarding their own safety to rescue wounded comrades.

In 1904, the newly created Los Angeles Department of Water and Power issued its first public report. 'The time has come,' it said, 'when we shall have to supplement the supply from another source.' With that simple statement, William Mulholland was about to become a modern Moses. But instead of leading his people to the promised land, he would cleave the desert and lead the promised waters to them.

In allowing the crucifixion to take place, God did the world an incalculable favor. Though infinitely powerful, compassionate, and wise, he could think of no other way to reprieve humanity from punishment for its sins (in particular, for the sin of being descended from a couple who had disobeyed him) than to allow an innocent man (his son no less) to be impaled through the limbs and slowly suffocate in agony. By acknowledging that this sadistic murder was a gift of divine mercy, people could earn eternal life. And if they failed to see the logic in all this, their flesh would be seared by fire for all eternity.

In 1922 everything changed again. The Eskimo pie was invented; James Joyce's Ulysses was printed in Paris; snow fell on Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the New York Yankees; Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Frederick Douglass's home was dedicated as a national shrine; former heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson invented the wrench...

In all this flurry of false scientism, the central question went unaddressed: if the possession of a penis and outsize brain were the distinguishing marks of the lords of creation, why was the world not rules by whales?

In 1939, Hitler expanded the German Navy and, in violation of the Munich Agreement, occupied parts of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Germany then established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This protectorate included those portions of Czechoslovakia that had not already been incorporated into Germany. On August 30, 1939, the German Reich issued an ultimatum to Poland concerning the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig. On September 1st, without waiting for a response to its ultimatum, Germany invaded Poland. Much to Hitler’s surprise, England honored its treaty with Poland. Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany, thereby ushering in another World War. Officially, “The Second World War” in Europe was started by the German Reich when it attacked Poland, although at the time Germany blamed the Treaty of Versailles.

In a period of less than 150 years, to progress from slavery to Pennsylvania Avenue speaks volumes about this family and our nation. Distracted by the rush of our everyday life, we might shrug it off today, but 100 years from now, historians will be discussing this precedent.

In America, I appear more simple that I am, because I was completely out of my element. It was my misfortune, not my fault, that I was born in a country which was not congenial to my desires. -1815, in a letter to her father William Patterson

In American, the history of racism is taught like this: 'There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done.

In America, the history of racism is taught like this: 'There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done.

In ancient Greece more than one royal house was guilty of crime which became the stuff of tragedy: now Rome was to follow the same path - but not in vain; for that very guilt was to hasten the coming of liberty and the hatred of kings, and to ensure that the throne it won should never again be occupied.

In an October 6 letter to Lord Stirling, he set forth the principle that would guide his increasingly sophisticated intelligence-gathering efforts. "As we are often obliged to reason the designs of the enemy from the appearances which come under our own observation and the information of our spies," Washington wrote, "we cannot be too attentive to these things which may afford us new light. Every minutia should have a place in our collection. For things of a seemingly trifling nature when conjoined with others of a more serious cast may lead to very valuable conclusions." But as Washington was to learn to his great regret, sometimes what were to become "the designs of the enemy" were developing in plain sight.