Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

history

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.

Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard.

Blood alone moves the wheels of history.

History is mostly guessing the rest is prejudice.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

History is written by the victors.

History should be written as philosophy.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.

In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time.

Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

The history of the world is the world's court of justice.

The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Those who become mentally ill often have a history of chronic pain.

Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.

You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of social development.

I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.

And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.

For the very first time the young are seeing history being made before it is censored by their elders.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.

History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

History shows that there are no invincible armies.

History, a distillation of rumour.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

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

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

Thanks to television, for the first time the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders.

The history of art is the history of revivals.

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.

The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.

The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.

There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died.

Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

Be as a tower firmly set Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

Dad, I'm in some trouble. There's been an accident and you're going to hear all sorts of things about me from now on. Terrible things.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.

Friendship is a word, the very sight of which in print makes the heart warm.

History develops, art stands still.

History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.

Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

Libraries are not made, they grow.

Stonehenge was built possibly by the Minoans. It presents one of man's first attempts to order his view of the outside world.

That great dust-heap called 'history'.

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.

The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

The institution of chivalry forms one of the most remarkable features in the history of the Middle Ages.

There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.

They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

World history is tragic.

All history is incomprehensible without Christ.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Dorothy is the only woman in history who has had her menopause in public and made it pay.

Failure is impossible.

For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study.

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.

History takes time. History makes memory.

I have written too much history to have faith in it and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

This is the lesson that history teaches: repetition.

Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.

What is history? An echo of the past in the future a reflex from the future on the past.

A chronicle is very different from history proper.

History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

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

Christians should be ready for a change because Jesus was the greatest changer in history.

History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed art has remembered the people, because they created.

History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat.

I came, I saw, I conquered.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

My place in history will depend on what I can do for the people and not on what the people can do for me.

You can't set a hen in one morning and have chicken salad for lunch.

The main essentials of a successful prime minister are sleep and a sense of history.

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

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.

History is a vision of God's creation on the move.

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.

Sometimes - history needs a push.

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

The main thing is to make history, not to write it.

The more bombers, the less room for doves of peace.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants.

Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.

All humanity is passion without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

History does nothing it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.

The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.

The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.

The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

History is a vast early warning system.

Ideas shape the course of history.

Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the 20th century than in all of previous human history.

My argument is that War makes rattling good history but Peace is poor reading.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books - but it is terrible when one has to live it.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

History is more or less bunk.

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.

The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people.

The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.

Those who invoke history will certainly be heard by history. And they will have to accept its verdict.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.

History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

I'm the only person of distinction who has ever had a depression named for him.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'

It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing Prison or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.

Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.

No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.

The Russians feared Ike. They didn't fear me.

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

World history is a court of judgment.

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace.

But every historical statement and legitimization itself moves within a certain relation to history.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

History is a race between education and catastrophe.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

Human history in essence is the history of ideas.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

Whatever can be noted historically can be found within history.

If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

History is the science of things which are not repeated.

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

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

Legend remains victorious in spite of history.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the 1st Amendment.

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

Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.

The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice their choice!

The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

The people who have really made history are the martyrs.

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.

We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go.

Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.

Providence conceals itself in the details of human affairs, but becomes unveiled in the generalities of history.