Quotations about:
    history


Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.


The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will.

Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
    (Source)

Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).
 
Added on 24-Nov-20 | Last updated 24-Nov-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Hofstadter, Richard

To be unacquainted with what has passed in the world, before we came into it ourselves, is to be always children. For what is the age of a single mortal, unless it is connected, by the aid of History, with the times of our ancestors?

[Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur?]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Brutus, ch. 34, sec. 120 (55 BC) [tr. Jones (1776)]
    (Source)

The original Latin. Alt. trans.
  • "For not to know what happened before one was born, is to be a boy all one s life. For what is the life of a man unless by a recollection of bygone transactions it is united to the times of his predecessors?" [tr. Yonge (1853)]
  • "To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a boy. For what is the lifetime of a man, unless it is connected with the lifetime of older men by the memory of earlier events?" [tr. Fox (2007)]
  • "What is a generation, if it is not conjoined with the age of our predecessors by the memory of ancient things?" [tr. @sentantiq]
  • "Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?"
  • "Not to know what happened before you were born is always to be a boy."
  • "To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child."
 
Added on 16-Nov-20 | Last updated 11-Aug-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius

I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity. Their crafts and traditions may have been dying. Their hostility to the new industrialism may have been backward-looking. Their communitarian ideals may have been fantasies. Their insurrectionary conspiracies may have been foolhardy. But they lived through these times of acute social disturbance, and we did not. Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experience; and, if they were casualties of history, they remain, condemned in their own lives, as casualties.

E. P. Thompson (1924-1993) British historian, writer, activist [Edward Palmer Thompson]
The Making of the English Working Class, Preface (1963)
    (Source)
 
Added on 9-Nov-20 | Last updated 9-Nov-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Thompson, E. P.

It is impossible to divide the past into distinct, clearly defined periods and prove that one age ended and another began in a particular year, such as 476, or 1453, or 1789. Men do not and cannot change their habits and ways of doing things all at once, no matter what happens.

James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936) American historian and educator
An Introduction to the History of Western Europe, ch. 1 “The Historical Point of View” (1902)
    (Source)
 
Added on 4-Nov-20 | Last updated 4-Nov-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Robinson, James Harvey

From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“The Prevention of Literature,” Polemic (Jan 1946)
    (Source)
 
Added on 28-Oct-20 | Last updated 28-Oct-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Orwell, George

Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers.

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004) American historian, professor, attorney, writer
(Attributed)

Occasionally quoted with "... and hoping for the best" added to the end.
 
Added on 26-Oct-20 | Last updated 26-Oct-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Boorstin, Daniel J.

One would expect people to remember the past and to imagine the future. But in fact, when discoursing or writing about history, they imagine it in terms of their own experience, and when trying to gauge the future they cite supposed analogies from the past: till, by a double process of repetition, they imagine the past and remember the future.

Lewis B. Namier (1888-1960) Polish-British historian
“Symmetry and Repetition” (1941), Conflicts: Studies in Contemporary History (1942)
 
Added on 22-Oct-20 | Last updated 22-Oct-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Namier, Lewis

The position which believers and unbelievers occupy with regard to their various forms of faith is very much the same all over the world. The difficulties which trouble us, have troubled the hearts and minds of men as far back as we can trace the beginnings of religious life. The great problems touching the relation of the Finite to the Infinite, of the human mind as the recipient, and of the Divine Spirit as the source of truth, are old problems indeed; and while watching their appearance in different countries, and their treatment under varying circumstances, we shall be able, I believe, to profit ourselves, both by the errors which others committed before us, and by the truth which they discovered. We shall know the rocks that threaten every religion in this changing and shifting world of ours, and having watched many a storm of religious controversy and many a shipwreck in distant seas, we shall face with greater calmness and prudence the troubled waters at home.

Max Müller (1823-1900) German-British philologist, Orientalist, religious studies founder
Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. 1, Preface (1866)
    (Source)
 
Added on 16-Oct-20 | Last updated 16-Oct-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Muller, Max

I have regarded you, not as a novelist, but as an historian; for it is my considered opinion, unshaken at 85, that records of fact are not history. They are only annals, which cannot become historical until the artist-poet-philosopher rescues them from the unintelligible chaos of their actual occurrence and arranges them in works of art.

When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to your novels. They object that the people in your books never existed; that their deeds were never done and their sayings never uttered. I assure them that they were, except that Upton Sinclair individualized and expressed them better than they could have done, and arranged their experiences, which as they actually occurred were as unintelligible as pied type, in significant and intelligible order.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Letter to Upton Sinclair (12 Dec 1941)
 
Added on 24-Sep-20 | Last updated 24-Sep-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Shaw, George Bernard

That men should pray and fight for their own freedom, and yet keep others in slavery, is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and, perhaps, impious part, but the history of mankind is filled with instances of human improprieties.

John Jay (1745-1829) American statesman, diplomat, abolitionist, politician, Chief Justice (1789-1795)
Letter to Rev. Doctor Price (27 Sep 1785)
    (Source)
 
Added on 23-Sep-20 | Last updated 23-Sep-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Jay, John

The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to Professor Demmon (16 Dec 1871)
    (Source)
 
Added on 18-Sep-20 | Last updated 18-Sep-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Garfield, James A.

Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.

[Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Brutus, sec. 42 (46 BC)

Alt. trans.:
  • "Orators are indeed permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly."
  • "For it is the privilege of rhetoricians to exceed the truth of history, that they may have an opportunity of embellishing the fate of their heroes." [tr. Jones (1776)]
  • "Fabrication's certainly allowed when practitioners of rhetoric write history, to frame a point more cleverly." [tr. Kaster (2020)]
 
Added on 14-Sep-20 | Last updated 14-Sep-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Cicero, Marcus Tullius

After titanic studies he was satisfied that a thorough knowledge of the past could lead a profound scholar to predict the future course of history with greater accuracy, provided that it did not turn out quite differently.

Aubrey Menen (1912-1989) British writer, novelist, satirist, theatre critic
The Ramayana (1954)
    (Source)
 
Added on 9-Sep-20 | Last updated 10-Sep-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Menen, Aubrey

As a novelist, I cannot occupy myself with “characters,” or at any rate central ones, who lack panache, in one or another sense, who would be incapable of a major action or a major passion, or who have not a touch of the ambiguity, the ultimate unaccountability, the enlarging mistiness of persons “in history.” History, as more austerely I now know it, is not romantic. But I am.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) Irish author
Pictures and Conversations, ch. 1 (1975)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Aug-20 | Last updated 10-Aug-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Bowen, Elizabeth

MORDEN: Think about it, Captain. Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond description. But look at what came out of all that. We’ve gone to the stars. Split the atom. Written sonnets. We would never have evolved this far if we hadn’t been at each other’s throats, evolving our way up inch by inch.

J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 3×22 “Z’Ha’Dum” (28 Oct 1996)
 
Added on 6-Aug-20 | Last updated 6-Aug-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Straczynski, J. Michael "Joe"

Such is the unity of all history that any one who endeavors to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless web.

F. W. Maitland (1850-1906) English legal historian and jurist [Frederic William Maitland]
“A Prologue to a History of English Law,” Law Quarterly Review (Jan 1898)
    (Source)

Prologue to the 2nd ed. of his and Pollock's History of English Law (1898). Frequently mis-paraphrased, "The law is a seamless web."
 
Added on 24-Jul-20 | Last updated 24-Jul-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Maitland, F. W.

It is not the least of a martyr’s scourges to be canonized by the persons who burned him.

Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, ch. 2 (1955)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Jul-20 | Last updated 10-Jul-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Kempton, Murray

There are very few historical characters who are alive enough to be hated.

William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“St. Paul” (1914), Outspoken Essays: First Series (1914)
    (Source)
 
Added on 22-Jun-20 | Last updated 22-Jun-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Inge, William Ralph

The bearers of the myth of every decade seem to carry in their hands the ax and the spade to execute and inter the myth of the previous one.

Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, Prelude (1955)
    (Source)
 
Added on 29-May-20 | Last updated 29-May-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Kempton, Murray

From history’s examples we conclude,
And modern instances teach us the same:
Good follows Evil, Evil follows Good,
Shame ends in glory, glory ends in shame.
Thus it is evident that no man should
Put trust in victories or wealth or fame,
Nor yet despair if Fortune is adverse:
She turns her wheel for better, as for worse.

Si vede per gli esempi di che piene
Sono l’antiche e le moderne istorie,
Che ‘l ben va dietro al male, e ‘l male al bene,
E fin son l’un de l’altro e biasmi e glorie;
E che fidarsi a l’uom non si conviene
In suo tesor, suo regno e sue vittorie,
Né disperarsi per Fortuna avversa,
Che sempre la sua ruota in giro versa.

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) Italian poet
Orlando Furioso, Canto 45, st. 4 (1532) [tr. Reynolds (1973)]

Alt. trans. [Rose (1831)]:
'Tis plain to sight, through instances that fill
The page of ancient and of modern story,
That ill succeeds to good, and good to ill;
That glory ends in shame, and shame in glory;
And that man should not trust, deluded still,
In riches, realm, or field of battle, gory
With hostile blood, nor yet despair, for spurns
Of Fortune; since her wheel for ever turns.
 
Added on 18-May-20 | Last updated 18-May-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Ariosto, Ludovico

Every great work of art has two faces: one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Daniel Barenboim (b. 1942) Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor
Quoted in the International Herald Tribune (20 Jan 1989)

The above is sometimes cited to his collaborative dialog with Edward Said, Parallels and Paradoxes (2002), but the passage there is slightly different: "I think that every great work of art has two faces: one toward its own time and one toward eternity."
 
Added on 14-May-20 | Last updated 15-May-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Barenboim, Daniel

Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Considerations by the Way,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 7 (1860)
    (Source)
 
Added on 21-Apr-20 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Human blunders, however, usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.

A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
The Origins of the Second World War, ch. 10 “The War of Nerves” (1961)
 
Added on 15-Apr-20 | Last updated 15-Apr-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Taylor, A. J. P.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1, “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 12 (1905-1906)
    (Source)

Often given as "Those who do not remember the past ...." Quoted at the Auschwitz Holocaust Museum, via Polish, as: "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again."

Often misattributed to Winston Churchill, who paraphrased it in a Commons speech in 1948: "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
 
Added on 9-Mar-20 | Last updated 16-Mar-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Santayana, George

Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Montaigne; or, The Skeptic,” Representative Men, Lecture 4 (1850)
    (Source)
 
Added on 25-Feb-20 | Last updated 19-Feb-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Prudent men are in the habit of saying — and not by chance or without basis — that he who wishes to see what is to come should observe what has already happened, because all the affairs of the world, in every age, have their individual counterparts in ancient times. The reason for this is that since they are carried on by men, who have and always have had the same passions, of necessity the same results appear.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 43 (1517) [tr. Gilbert (1958)]
    (Source)

Alt. trans.: "The wise are wont to say, and not without reason or at random, that he who would forecast what is about to happen should look to what has been; since all human events, whether present or to come, have their exact counterpart in the past. And this, because these events are brought about by men, whose passions and dispositions remaining in all ages the same naturally give rise to the same effects." [tr. Thomson]
 
Added on 27-Jan-20 | Last updated 27-Jan-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Machiavelli, Niccolo

Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 3 “Government and Politics” (1989)
    (Source)
 
Added on 17-Jan-20 | Last updated 17-Jan-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Abbey, Edward

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

H.G. Wells (1866-1946) British writer [Herbert George Wells]
The Outline of History, Vol. 2, ch. 41, sec. 4 (1921)
    (Source)

Also attributed to Wells: "Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have."
 
Added on 6-Jan-20 | Last updated 6-Jan-20
Link to this post | 1 comment
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Wells, H.G.

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. Both assumptions are false: both of them must be accepted as true if we are to go on eating and working and loving, and are to keep open a few breathing-holes for the human spirit. No millennium seems likely to descend upon humanity; no better and stronger League of Nations will be instituted; no form of Christianity and no alternative to Christianity will bring peace to the world or integrity to the individual; no “change of heart” will occur. And yet we need not despair, indeed, we cannot despair; the evidence of history shows us that men have always insisted on behaving creatively under the shadow of the sword; that they have done their artistic and scientific and domestic stuff for the sake of doing it, and that we had better follow their example under the shadow of the aeroplanes.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
    (Source)
 
Added on 20-Sep-19 | Last updated 20-Sep-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Forster, E. M.

The salvation of America and of the human race depends on the next election, if we believe the newspapers. But so it was last year, and so it was the year before, and our fathers believed the same thing forty years ago.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1848-10)
    (Source)
 
Added on 9-Jun-19 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.

Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers’ Manual, Part 3, ch. 1 “Words as Separate Units of Consciousness” (1988)
    (Source)
 
Added on 27-May-19 | Last updated 27-May-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Brown, Rita Mae

Americans’ lack of passion for history is well known. History may not quite be bunk, as Henry Ford suggested, but there’s no denying that, as a people, we sustain a passionate concentration on the present and the future. Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look — historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry (b. 1936) American novelist, essayist, bookseller, screenwriter
Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846–1890 (2005)
    (Source)
 
Added on 1-Jan-19 | Last updated 1-Jan-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by McMurtry, Larry

People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Mort (1987)
    (Source)
 
Added on 28-Dec-18 | Last updated 28-Dec-18
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Pratchett, Terry

Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives any more.

They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?

Andrew R. Moxon (contemp.) American writer, critic [a.k.a. Julius Goat]
Blogspot (16 Jan 2017)
    (Source)

Frequently mis-attributed to Twitter, where Moxxon also posts under his @JuliusGoat handle. The original Julius Goat Blogspot site is no longer online.
 
Added on 14-Nov-18 | Last updated 14-Nov-18
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Moxon, A. R.

We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse: we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard.

Penelope Lively (b. 1933) British writer
Moon Tiger (1987)
    (Source)
 
Added on 2-Oct-18 | Last updated 2-Oct-18
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Lively, Penelope

HENRY: This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d, —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs’d, they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 58ff (4.3.58-69) (1599)
    (Source)
 
Added on 14-May-18 | Last updated 29-Jan-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Shakespeare, William

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989) American historian and author
“Papyrus to Paperbacks: The World That Books Made,” Washington Post (30 Dec 1979)
    (Source)
 
Added on 15-Feb-18 | Last updated 15-Feb-18
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Tuchman, Barbara

Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness — justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
    (Source)
 
Added on 17-Nov-17 | Last updated 9-Nov-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by King, Martin Luther

Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Man the Reformer,” lecture, Boston (1841-01-25)
    (Source)
 
Added on 24-Oct-17 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Everybody thought, “this time is different.” In my view, those are the most frightening words in the English language. If you look at the crises that have infected the world, the term, “this time, it’s different” has almost always been the hubris that comes before nemesis.

Andrew Crockett (1943-2012) British banker, economist, author, public servant
Speech, Pomona College, Claremont, Calif. (Apr 2009)
    (Source)

Referring to the period leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
 
Added on 3-Aug-17 | Last updated 3-Aug-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Crockett, Andrew

By virtue of depression, we recall those misdeeds we buried in the depths of our memory. Depression exhumes our shames.

Emile Cioran (1911-1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist [E.M. Cioran]
Anathemas and Admirations, ch. 11 “That Fatal Perspicacity” (1986) [tr. R. Howard (1991)]
    (Source)
 
Added on 2-Aug-17 | Last updated 2-Aug-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Cioran, Emile

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer [عمر خیام]
Rubáiyát, 71 [tr. FitzGerald]

A reference to Daniel 5 in the Bible.
 
Added on 31-Jul-17 | Last updated 31-Jul-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Omar Khayyam

So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again;
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
“Old and New,” ll. 3–4 (1848)
    (Source)
 
Added on 18-Jul-17 | Last updated 18-Jul-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Kingsley, Charles

For books are more than books, they are the life
The very heart and core of ages past,
The reason why men lived and worked and died,
The essence and quintessence of their lives.

Amy Lowell (1874-1925) American poet
“The Boston Athenaeum,” A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912)
 
Added on 13-Jul-17 | Last updated 13-Jul-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Lowell, Amy

What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them, and with this as the foremost object ideas of freedom and self-reliance and service to the community were obscured to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a co-operative business possessed of great wealth in which all citizens had a right to share. […] Athens had reached the point of rejecting independence, and the freedom she now wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result. […] If men insisted on being free from the burden of a life that was self-dependent and also responsible for the common good, they would cease to be free at all. Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms.

Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) American educator, author, classicist
The Echo of Greece, ch. 2 “Athens’ Failure” (1957)
    (Source)
 
Added on 4-Jul-17 | Last updated 4-Jul-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Hamilton, Edith

We learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Press conference (1965-07-28)

Defending his decision to to not withdraw US troops from Vietnam.
 
Added on 15-Jun-17 | Last updated 28-Mar-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Johnson, Lyndon

The book has been man’s greatest triumph. Seated in my library, I live in a Time Machine. In an instant I can be transmitted to any era, any part of the world, even to outer space. I have lived in every period of history. I have listened to Buddha speak, marched with Alexander, sailed with the Vikings, ridden in canoes with the Polynesians. I have been at the courts of Queen Elizabeth and Louis XIV; I have been a friend to Captain Nemo and have sailed with Captain Bligh on the Bounty. I have walked in the agora with Socrates and Plato, and listened to Jesus deliver the Sermon on the Mount.

Best of all, I can do it all again, at any moment. The books are there. I have only to reach up to the shelves and take them down to relive the moments I have loved.

Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) American writer
The Sackett Companion (1988)
    (Source)
 
Added on 20-Apr-17 | Last updated 20-Apr-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by L'Amour, Louis

There is something wrong with our world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don’t think we have to look too far to see that. I’m sure that most of you would agree with me in making that assertion. And when we stop to analyze the cause of our world’s ills, many things come to mind. We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don’t know enough. But it can’t be that. Because in terms of accumulated knowledge we know more today than men have known in any period of human history. We have the facts at our disposal. We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy than we’ve ever known in any period of the world’s history. So it can’t be because we don’t know enough. And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific genius lags behind. That is, if we have not made enough progress scientifically. Well then, it can’t be that. For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to warp distance and place time in chains, so that today it’s possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. Back in about 1753 it took a letter three days to go from New York City to Washington, and today you can go from here to China in less time than that. It can’t be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man’s scientific genius has been amazing. I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man’s problems and the real cause of the world’s ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Rediscovering Lost Values,” Sermon, Second Baptist Church, Detroit (28 Feb 1954)
    (Source)
 
Added on 7-Apr-17 | Last updated 8-Apr-17
Link to this post | 2 comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by King, Martin Luther

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist
The Communist Manifesto (1848) [with Friedrich Engels]
 
Added on 6-Apr-17 | Last updated 6-Apr-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Marx, Karl

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Annual Message to Congress (1 Dec 1862)
 
Added on 22-Mar-17 | Last updated 12-Feb-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Lincoln, Abraham

The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, — luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, — are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) English intellectual, literary critic and writer.
The Unquiet Grave (1944)
 
Added on 13-Feb-17 | Last updated 13-Feb-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Connolly, Cyril

The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known.

Yoshida Kenkō (1284-1350) Japanese author and Buddhist monk [吉田 兼好]
Essays in Idleness [Tsurezuregusa] (c. 1330)
 
Added on 2-Feb-17 | Last updated 2-Feb-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Yoshida, Kenko

The trouble is, you can ignore history — but history won’t necessarily ignore you.

Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Fuller Memorandum (2010)
 
Added on 31-Jan-17 | Last updated 31-Jan-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Stross, Charles

Fifty years from now, if an understanding of man’s origins, his evolution, his history, his progress is not in the common place of the school books, we shall not exist.

Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
The Ascent of Man, Ep. 13 “The Long Childhood” (1973)
 
Added on 23-Jan-17 | Last updated 23-Jan-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Bronowski, Jacob

A sacrifice, if we may say so, to the god Brevity, whom all historians, indeed, all who work with the written word, ought to worship.

Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
The Phoenix Guards (1991)
 
Added on 30-Dec-16 | Last updated 30-Dec-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Brust, Steven