History Quotes

"Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe"

John Polkinghorne, Physicist

"Every actor in the room honored Sidney for being there so many years before. And everybody was so moved to be at a place where history was being made again. It was tangible"

Lee Grant, Actress

"It is not observed in history that families improve with time"

George William Curtis, Author

"Democrats believe that government should reflect the sense of community that Americans demonstrated after Katrina - the sense of community that has defined and united America throughout its history"

Patrick J. Kennedy, Politician

"We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page"

Barack Obama, President

"In the long course of history, having people who understand your thought is much greater security than another submarine"

J. William Fulbright, Politician

"I would hazard a guess that we have found fossilized human remains of at least a thousand different specimens in South and East Africa, more or less complete at that. I think this is where the prelude to human history was primarily played out"

Richard Leakey, Environmentalist

"The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting"

Mary Douglas, Scientist

"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a scam. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming"

John Coleman, Businessman

"History has proven that the PLO and its sectors suffered great damage when walking the way of harming Zionist interests in other countries around the world"

Ahmed Yassin, Activist

"Our history is not our destiny"

Alan Cohen, Businessman

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

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Author

"Throughout human history, the American Idea has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed"

Paul Ryan, Politician

"We've built the largest empire in the history of the world. It's been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It's only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort"

John Perkins, Economist

"Sometimes history takes things into its own hands"

Thurgood Marshall, Judge

"History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state"

Michael K. Simpson, Politician

"The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology"

H. P. Blavatsky, Philosopher

"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization"

Georges Clemenceau, Leader

"And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history"

David Icke, Athlete

"The people in Japan know more about the history of jazz and the musicians than the people in the United States do"

Billy Higgins, Musician

"The southward advance of native African farmers with Central African crops halted in Natal, beyond which Central African crops couldn't grow - with enormous consequences for the recent history of South Africa"

Jared Diamond, Author

"The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle"

James Hutton, Scientist

"Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture"

Ibrahim Babangida, Statesman

"I really believed that if I could play that character, who is grounded in the earth and the history of the United States - not the kind of role I usually play - it would help me change the perception out there and my own perception of what I can accomplish as a performer"

Andrea Martin, Actor

"History has repeatedly shown that when a new method or material becomes available, new uses for it arise"

Wilson Greatbatch, Inventor

"It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of animals as the fixed point, and to consider their structure and organization as specially adapted to be in accordance with them"

Alfred Russel Wallace, Scientist

"Our flag honors those who have fought to protect it, and is a reminder of the sacrifice of our nation's founders and heroes. As the ultimate icon of America's storied history, the Stars and Stripes represents the very best of this nation"

Joe Barton, Politician

"We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars"

Anatole Broyard, Critic

"I call on everyone of goodwill both in Ireland and abroad to join now in ensuring that the beginning of peace becomes a reality, before this year is out. Let us together open a new era in our history"

Albert Reynolds, Politician

"I don't compete with other discus throwers. I compete with my own history"

Al Oerter, Athlete

"I really want to do a book on the history of the no-wave music scene in New York, how it extended out and formed lots of other things. It was such a great visual culture"

Thurston Moore, Musician

"The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from"

John Still, Clergyman

"From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned"

Charles Sumner, Politician

"As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide"

Martin van Creveld, Historian

"The most superficial student of Roman history must be struck by the extraordinary degree in which the fortunes of the republic were affected by the presence of foreigners, under different names, on her soil"

Henry James Sumner Maine, Historian

"I never thought about becoming a politician. But during the military dictatorship, my grandfather was put in prison six times and my father twice. If my family and my country didn't have this history, I might be a professor somewhere today"

Georgios A. Papandreou, Politician

"And certainly the history of public sculpture has been disastrous but that doesn't mean it ought not to continue and the only way it even has a chance to continue is if the work gets out into the public"

Richard Serra, Sculptor

"The difference between me and the newer artists is that I have the history with the architects, the masters that started the music. I know where the music came from"

Ricky Skaggs, Musician

"World War II was a decisive time in our history and June 6, 1944, marked the decisive moment of the war"

Lane Evans, Politician

"No people in the history of the world have ever been so misunderstood, so misjudged, and so cruelly maligned"

John Brown Gordon, Soldier

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