Best history & action Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.”

Men Want Feels Should Action Opinion History Records Expression Office Chiefs Dread Virtuous Rescue Oblivion Posterity Infamous Depraved

Author:Tacitus

“Good things don't come to those who wait. They come to those who agitate!”

Motivational Action Waiting History Activity Goodness Good Things Activism Monday Monday Morning Inactivity Agitate Standstill Those Who Wait Happy Monday

Author:Julian Bond

“The character of the tribunes was, in every respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government.”

Source: THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages

“There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the happiness of private life.”

Source: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V1: the History Focus

“The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and, if those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single man.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which both the one and the other should be united and harmonised would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature.”

Should Humans May Ideas Character Seems Action Perfect Pleasure United History Human Nature Attributes Respectable Roman Empire Qualifications

Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth and the accidents of his life never allowed him the freedom of choice. He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the Academy and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice of Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world and to posterity for the happiness of millions.”

Source: THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages

“The complaints of contemporary writes, who deplore the increase of luxury and deprevation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“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.”

Knows Persons Character Would Be Action Romance Passion History Majors Ultimate Rate Novelists Incapable Ambiguity Panache

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc, toward an unknown shore. Yet the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing.”

Humans Sometimes Seems Action History Movement Determined Wide Destination Shore Arcs Human Actions

Author:George W. Bush

“It is important to note that multiculturalism does not share the postmodernist stance. Its passions are political; its assumptionsempirical; its conception of identities visceral. For it, there is no doubting that history is something that happened and that those happenings have left their mark within our collective consciousness. History for multiculturalists is not a succession of dissolving texts, but a tense tangle of past actions that have reshaped the landscape, distributed the nation's wealth, established boundaries, engendered prejudices, and unleashed energies.”

“Although in our country the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States.”

People Should States Whole Action President United Party Principles History United States Chosen Chiefs Officials World History Magistrates

Author:James K. Polk

“The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.”

Action Energy Business Destiny History Conditions Health Depends Increase Chiefs Fulfillment Faculty American Dream Organisms Vitality Vigor

Author:Colin Powell

“Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.”

Men Moments Action Attitude History Intention Clarity Presidential Oysters Seize The Opportunity Seize The Moment

Author:Theodore Roosevelt

“While we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed.”

Life Inspirational Motivational Action History Knowing Becoming Positivity Deeds Celebrate Celebration Live In The Present Celebrate Life

Author:Mattie Stepanek

“Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

Source: Churchill speaks: Winston S. Churchill in peace and war : collected speeches, 1897-1963

“I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.”

Ifs Men Doe Matter Action History Plans Military Revolution Absolutes Have Faith Rebellious Cuban Revolution

Author:Fidel Castro

“When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take choose the bolder.”

“This I regard as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.”

Action Evil History Highest Function Regard Terror Deeds Worthy Posterity

Book:The Annals & The Histories

Source: The Annals & The Histories

“You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.”

“Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.”

Source: France and England in North America: Pioneers of France in the New World. The Jesuits of North America in the seventeenth century. La Salle and the discovery of the Great West. The old régime in Canada

“History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.”