Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

If the art is concealed, it succeeds.

If, then, this civilization is to be saved, if it is not to be submerged by centuries of barbarism, but to secure the treasures ofits inheritance on new and more stable foundations, there is indeed need for those now living fully to realize how far the decay has already progressed.

If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order would have been executed without hesitation by the ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government.

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 the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

If there is a single trait in our character that has historically set us apart from other nations, it is our determination to limit the authority of those who rule over us.

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To that you were called.

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.

If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

if we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate.

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.

If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind.

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

If we have no other reality beyond the illusion, you too must not count overmuch on your reality as you feel it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.

I have been blind expecting everything to stay the same.

If you write a post and put it on a blog, that's a historical document. If you change your template, then that entry looks completely different. It's the same words, but not the same meaning. This all depends on what historical questions that people will be asking and we can't know what they will want.

I had serious training of painting styles from different historical periods... But to have all this training is not enough to be an artist. You have to add a new page to history; otherwise you are not making a contribution. But making history is not easy.

I have crossed over on the backs of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Madam C. J. Walker. Because of them I can now live the dream. I am the seed of the free, and I know it. I intend to bear great fruit.

I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.

I, indeed, following the true law of history, have never set down any fact that I have not learned from trustworthy speakers or writers.