Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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

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

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.

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 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 the art is concealed, it succeeds.

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 [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, 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.

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.