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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“If it had not been for the English I should have been emperor of the East, but wherever there is water to float a ship we are sure to find them in our way.”

Ifs Way Should Has Beens Water History Should Have East Ships Floats Should Have Been Emperor

Author:Napoleon Bonaparte

“Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a case of bad men doing wrong things for wicked reasons. This is the full-sized or standard purebred evil and is easily recognized even by moral neophytes. Other malignities-drugs in America, famine in Africa and everything in the Middle East-are more complex. When combating those evils people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot.”

Source: Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

“The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia.”

Form Lost Left History Virtue Greatness Pride Court Simplicity Ancient East Vanity Manners Asia Ceremony Manly Roman Empire Semblance Ostentatious

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

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

“If Julian had flattered himself that his personal connexion with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the hereditary softness of the Syrians.”

Source: The Student's Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured; the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East.”

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

“The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.”

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

“Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates who reigned in the capital of the East was rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria.”

Years Long School History East Seats Forty Rome Principal Rejected Roman Empire Intervals Fortresses Alexandria Constantinople

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

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

“The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years in a state of premature and perpetual decay.”

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

“The East is marvellously interesting for tracing our steps back. But for going forward, it is nothing. All it can hope for is to be fertilised by Europe, so that it can start on a new phase.”

Interesting Steps History Europe East Phases Tracing

Book:The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

Source: The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

“At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men hurled themselves against the East; the words of an hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure monk like Luther bathed Europe in blood. The voice of a Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the masses. The inventors of genius hasten the march of civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create history.”

Men World Force Voice History Millions Blood Genius Civilization Mass Capable Europe East March Peter Echoes Obscure Monk Luther Inventor Fanatics Newton Hermits Bidding

Author:Gustave Le Bon

“Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.”

Should History Wind Roots Criticism South East Knives

Book:Emerson: A Modern Anthology

Source: Emerson: A Modern Anthology

“America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided.”

War America History Laughing Sun Mountain Down And West South Notion East Absurd Hills Civil War Compass Up And Down American Civil War Sun Rise Over The Hill Us Civil War

Author:Sam Watkins