Best 5189 quotes in «history quotes» category

A society in stable equilibrium is-by definition-one that has no history and wants no historians.

As one reads history ... one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted.

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

As socialists, we are opponents of the Jews, because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods.

As the primary end of History is to record truth, impartiality, fidelity and accuracy are the fundamental qualities of an Historian.

As well as might we say that a ship is built, loaded and manned for the sake of any particular pilot, instead of acknowledging that the pilot is made for the sake of the ship, her lading, and her crew, who are always the owners in the political vessel; as to say that kingdoms were instituted for kings, not kings for kingdoms.

At a certain point one ceases to defend a certain view of history; one must defend history itself.

At each epoch of history the world was in a hopeless state, and at each epoch of history the world muddled through; at each epoch the world was lost, and at each epoch it was saved.

Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth.

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.

At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet.

At the dawn of the 21st century, a free people must now choose to shape the forces of the Information Age and the global society, to unleash the limitless potential of all our people, and yes, to form a more perfect union.

A turning point in modern history.

Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.

A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

A woman's whole life is a history of the affections.

Be assured, he is not an ordinary man.

A work should convey its entire meaning by itself, imposing it on the spectator even before he knows what the subject is.

A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.

Beauty is as useful as the useful. More so, perhaps. (Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile. Plus peut-etre.)

Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee.

Before the war it was always the United States *are*, after the war it was the United States is... it made us an is.

Because history is only an aggregate of personal hostilities, personal prejudices, personal blindness and irrationality, there are times when we have to live against it.

Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.

Between history and the eternal I have chosen history because I like certainties. Of it, at least, I am certain, and how can I deny this force crushing me.

Be lord of a day, through wisdom and justice, and you can put up your history books.

Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.

Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Bound as our lives are to the tyranny of time, it is through what we know of history that we are delivered from our bonds and escape - into time.

[B]inary opposites fit nicely the formulation of history as written, but they do little to capture the messy, inchoate reality of history as lived.

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.

Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.

British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question.

But also out here in this dreary, difficult war, I think history will record that this may have been one of Americas finest hours, because we took a difficult task and we succeeded.

But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

But in the intellectual world, there is room for all opposing forces: even that which never appears victorious in the real world continues to be effective as a dynamic force (in the intellectual world) and precisely the unfulfilled ideals prove to be the most invincible.

But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.

But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition.

But one sound always rose above the clamor of busy life and, no matter how much of a tintinnabulation, was never confused and, fora moment lifted everything into an ordered sphere: that of the bells.

But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord; nor can it reasonably be presumed that the restoration of British freedom was exempt from tumult and faction. The pre-eminence of birth and fortune must have been frequently violated by bold and popular citizens; and the haughty nobles, who complained that they were become the subjects of their own servants, would sometimes regret the reign of an arbitrary monarch.

But then history does not only consist of documents.

But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral of physical government of the world.

But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian.

But without Adolf Hitler, who was possessed of a demonic personality, a granite will, uncanny instincts, a cold ruthlessness, a remarkable intellect, a soaring imagination and - until the end, when, drunk with power and success, he overreached himself - an amazing capacity to size up people and situations, there almost certainly would never have been a Third Reich.