History Quotes and Sayings
Quotes about History
In the long history of humankind (and animal-kind, too)
those who learned to collaborate and
improvise most effectively have prevailed.
- Charles Darwin
Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Evolution Teamwork Collaboration
Everything we say, do, think, and feel
is a product of our personal history
and the collective history of humankind.
Our name for these histories is "prejudice."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everything we believe is a matter of evolution and history.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The importance of history is in it's
educational value for our lives today,
not in regret, resentment, or revenge.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
- Winston Churchill
History is the version of past events
that people have decided to agree upon.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better
by all parties to leave the past to history,
especially as I propose to write that history myself.
- Winston Churchill
Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The lessons of the past provide the path to the future.
- Anonymous
Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
- Edward R. Murrow
For the very first time the young are
seeing history being made
before it is censored by their elders.
- Margaret Mead
For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.
- Virginia Woolf
Those that fail to learn from history
are doomed to repeat it.
- Winston Churchill
The very ink with which all history
is written is merely fluid prejudice.
- Mark Twain
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree
is connected with that of man.
- Henry David Thoreau
History is written by the victors.
- Winston Churchill
The awareness that health is dependent
upon habits that we control
makes us the first generation in history
that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
- Jimmy Carter
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.
- John F. Kennedy
Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to so few.
- Winston Churchill
Who has fully realized that history
is not contained in thick books
but lives in our very blood?
- Carl Jung
The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement
for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests.
We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction
of international tensions and would open the way
to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy
of this period of social transition
was not the strident clamor of the bad people,
but the appalling silence of the good people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is sad but unfortunately true that
man learns nothing from history.
- Carl Jung
The history of free men is never really written by chance
but by choice; their choice!
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Live out of your imagination, not your history.
- Stephen Covey
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government
results from too much government.
- Thomas Jefferson
The claim "I was only following orders" has been used
to justify too many tragedies in our history.
- Captain Picard of the television series
STAR TREK: The Next Generation
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,
history will look upon the act of
depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man.
They die up to a point.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
- Thomas Jefferson
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
- Thomas Jefferson
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind
in the history of the world or to make it the last.
- John F. Kennedy
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
- Napoleon Bonaparte
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside,
is that they cannot win and their participants know it.
Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary
because it invites defeat.
It involves an emotional catharsis,
but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced,
and today we think this more than ever, and are just as wrong
as all previous ages that thought so.
How often have we not seen the truth condemned!
It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.
- Carl Jung
Thanks to television, for the first time
the young are seeing history made
before it is censored by their elders.
- Margaret Mead
Study history, study history.
In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
- Winston Churchill
A small body of determined spirits
fired by an unquenchable faith
in their mission
can alter the course of history.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
History does not long entrust the care of freedom
to the weak or the timid.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That is why it is called Present.
- Anonymous
We would like to live as we once lived,
but history will not permit it.
- John F. Kennedy
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.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely
only after they have exhausted all other alternatives.
- Abba Eban
We are not makers of history.
We are made by history.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Anyone who knows history, particularly
the history of Europe, will, I think,
recognize that the domination
of education or of government
by any one particular religious faith
is never a happy arrangement for the people.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted
with the government of himself.
Can he, then be trusted with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?
Let history answer this question.
- Thomas Jefferson
When I despair, I remember that all through history
the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and
for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end, they always fall ... think of it, always.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
In the long history of the world,
only a few generations have been granted the role
of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
- John F. Kennedy
Geography has made us neighbors.
History has made us friends.
Economics has made us partners,
and necessity has made us allies.
Those whom God has so joined together,
let no man put asunder.
- John F. Kennedy
Well-behaved women seldom make history.
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
One cannot have wisdom without perspective,
but once gaining perspective, one attains wisdom.
Wisdom is the ability to view every situation
as each person who is in any way affected
by that situation might view it.
Wisdom benefits from having a knowledge of history,
and therefore a historical perspective,
as well from as having the perspective of imagination -
the realm of the what-might-be
inhabited by futurists and science-fiction writers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The new rage is to say that the government
is the cause of all our problems,
and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems.
I can tell you, that contradicts
evidence, history, and common sense.
- William J. Clinton
One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history
rests on something spiritual.
If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history.
If it is weak, it suffers world history.
- Albert Schweitzer
Pick up a stone that feels good to you
and is small enough to hold in one hand.
Consider how long that stone has been around
and what enormous pressure it has experienced.
Draw strength from its long history.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason
if we dig deep in our history and remember
that we are not descended from fearful men,
not from men who feared to write, to speak,
to associate and to defend causes
which were for the moment unpopular.
- Edward R. Murrow
This [the Holocaust] must never happen again. ...
Be vigilant about your rights.
Care about the rights and human dignity of others.
When the rights of any group, no matter how small,
no matter how marginal, are violated,
your liberty, your freedom is put at risk.
Let there never be a day when we cast about in horror
and have to ask the question, "How did it ever come to this?"
- Thomas Childers, Ph.D., Professor of History,
University of Pennsylvania, in the closing remarks
of his six-hour Teaching Company audio lecture series
AN INSPIRED LIFE: I HAVE A CHOICE
My key to living an inspired life involves
Embracing my history,
Understanding the function of expectations
and gently learning to have none;
Recognizing the power of attentive and conscious choices.
In all circumstances I acknowledge this,
IN ALL THINGS AND ALL WAYS, I HAVE CHOICE.
My choice resides in my perspective.
While I certainly do not control climate
and markets and roadways and others,
I do control myself and my response
to all those circumstances. I do indeed.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Long Quotes and Sayings
Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect.
If it's not based on respect,
nothing that appears to be good will last very long.
- Amy Grant
Relax. Take a day off.
Go for a long silent walk in the woods.
The world will still be there tomorrow -
as good and as bad as ever.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is a long lesson in humility.
- James M. Barrie
It doesn't matter how long my hair is
or what color my skin is
or whether I'm a woman or a man.
- John Lennon
If I had no sense of humor,
I would long ago have committed suicide.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks
as if they were great and noble.
- Helen Keller
The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.
- Jacqueline Schiff
How you think when you lose
determines how long it will be until you win.
- Gilbert (G. K.) Chesterton
It had long since come to my attention
that people of accomplishment
rarely sat back and let things happen to them.
They went out and happened to things.
- Leonardo da Vinci
Take a long walk alone in the woods -
leave the cellphone and music player at home.
Your whole BEing will appreciate it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Every one desires to live long,
but no one would be old.
- Abraham Lincoln
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask.
She has long ago taken her resolution.
- Henry David Thoreau
Part of our essential humanity is paying respect to what God gave us
and what will be here a long time after we're gone.
- William J. Clinton
I don't care what anybody says about me
as long as it isn't true.
- Truman Capote
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