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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“And there is the point exactly, we are all the time blaming difficulties on to something else. Our real trouble is that we are too soft to solve the problem.”

Real Problem History Power Learning Trouble Difficulty Blame Solve

Book:Prophet of progress: selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering

Source: Prophet of progress: selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering

“War is an option of difficulties.”

War History Difficulty Civil War American Civil War

Author:James Wolfe

“It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.”

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

“If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order would have been executed without hesitation by the ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)

“The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without difficulty and without reluctance; and posterity will confess that the character of Theodosius might furnish the subject of a sincere and ample panegyric. The wisdom of his laws and the success of his arms rendered his administration respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies. He loved and practised the virtues of domestic life, which seldom hold their residence in the palaces of kings.”

Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II: A.D. 395 to A.D. 1185 (A Modern Library E-Book)

“What, then is our duty? It is to carefully distinguish the historic moment in which we live and to consciously assign our small energies to a specific battlefield. The more we are in phase with the current which leads the way, the more we aid man in his difficult, uncertain, danger-fraught ascent toward salvation.”

Men Way Life War Moments Energy Difficult History Doubt Military Danger Duty Difficulty Anger Adversity Salvation Currents Aids Phases Uncertain Historic Battlefields Ascent

Book:Report to Greco

Source: Report to Greco

“Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among them, like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its whole value; and the precious particles are generally combined with the baser in such a manner that the separation is a task of the utmost difficulty.”

Whole Facts Lying Values History Mass Tasks Gold Difficulty Mere Separation Abstract Particles Latent Dross

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“Some commentators have drawn such a stark and gloomy picture of the Weimar Republic's early difficulties that the Republic seems foredoomed to failure from the outset... The conditions in which Weimar democracy were born were certainly not such as to help it flourish; and as it unfolded, it was clearly saddled with a burden of problems, in a range of areas.”

Helping Problem Seems Born History Democracy Conditions Areas Difficulty Burden Range Republic Nazi Commentators Starks Gloomy Nazi Germany

Book:A History of Germany 1918-2014: The Divided Nation

Source: A History of Germany 1918-2014: The Divided Nation

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

Thinking Wisdom Past Time Change History Cases Quiet Difficulty Obstacles Occasions Civil War Dogma Inadequate Stormy Unschooling Stormy Days

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”

Inspirational Accepting History Failure Difficulty Excuse No Excuses

Author:Edward R. Murrow

“Everything must be recaptured and relocated in the general framework of history, so that despite the difficulties, the fundamental paradoxes and contradictions, we may respect the unity of history which is also the unity of life.”

Inspirational May Motivational History Difficulty Fundamentals Unity Despite Contradiction Paradox Framework

Book:On History

Source: On History

“It is very remarkable that while the words Eternal, Eternity, Forever, are constantly in our mouths, and applied without hesitation, we yet experience considerable difficulty in contemplating any definite term which bears a very large proportion to the brief cycles of our petty chronicles. There are many minds that would not for an instant doubt the God of Nature to have existed from all Eternity, and would yet reject as preposterous the idea of going back a million of years in the History of His Works. Yet what is a million, or a million million, of solar revolutions to an Eternity?”

“It is in times of difficulty that great nations like great men display the whole energy of their character and become an object of admiration to posterity.”

Men Whole Character Energy Nations History Objects Difficulty Great Men Admiration Display Posterity Great Nations

Author:Napoleon Bonaparte

“The difficulty with humorists is that they will mix what they believe with what they don't; whichever seems likelier to win an effect.”

Believe Seems Winning History Effects Difficulty Humorists

Author:John Updike