Quotessence
Home / Topics / History Quotes

History Quotes

Browse 6202 quotes about History.

Related topics

MenArtPhilosophyIfsPastWarWorldPeopleHistoricalHumansHistorianKnowsMayRoman EmpireDoeThinkingScienceHas BeensNationsWritingFactsWayInspirationalWorld HistoryAmerican Civil WarCivil WarShouldEventsYearsAgeMindFirstsPoliticalGenerationsWantBritish HistoryHumourWholeCountryGivingWomenLifeMadeBelievePoliticsStatesLongMotivationalEndsWisdomAmericaNazi GermanyCenturyFunnyHandsLawMemoriesNazismFormLittlesMankindNeedsRaceRealStudyGovernmentLyingRealityWrittenCharacterCoursesHeartPrinciplesSeemsTwoBookIdeasIndividualLiteratureWellsMeanMightStillsActionCivilizationDoneLooksPersonsStoriesTeachBloodEnemyEyeMilitaryOrderRecordsViewsHappenedImportantReasonmore

History Quotes

“Although it is tempting to imagine an ancient era innocent of biochemical weaponry, in fact this Pandora's box of horrors was opened thousands of years ago. The history of making war with biological weapons begins in mythology, in ancient oral traditions that preserved records of actual events and ideas of the era before the invention of written histories.”

YearsIdeasWarFactsHistoryRecordsImagineWrittenEventsHorrorWeaponsYears AgoTraditionAncientBoxesMythologyInventionInnocentErasTemptingWeaponryPandoraBiological WeaponsOral TraditionPandora's BoxWritten History
Author:Adrienne Mayor
Create image

“The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular.”

PeopleMindHumansIdeasHelpingUseAgeImaginationMemoriesForgetHistoryMaterialsCircumstancesJudgmentModelsReflectionLettersFacultyArtificialPrincipalSavagesIncapableHerdsRoman EmpireCivilisedLethargic
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“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.”

ShouldHumansMayIdeasCharacterSeemsActionPerfectPleasureUnitedHistoryHuman NatureAttributesRespectableRoman EmpireQualifications
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.”

WorldHas BeensIdeasWarCoursesFoundLostAnswersDealsHistoryMilitaryGreatnessFailureExcellenceWar Of The WorldsLiberalismWorld War IiWorld War IJungleFrontiersCubaBerlinNew DealGreat SocietyNew FrontiersIndochina
Author:George McGovern
Create image

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

LifeInspirationalWritingMindIdeasWisdomTruthSuccessScienceReligionReadingInspiringBusinessEducationKnowledgeHistoryLearningReturnPerceptionInnovationOriginalsPersonal GrowthEducationalDimensionsNew IdeasGreat IdeaPast LifeSchooledHomeschoolingLive And LearnGreat EducationOriginal IdeasBusiness InnovationHuman ThoughtLifelong LearnerGreat EducationalInnovation And BusinessMotivational LeadershipTeacher StudentInspirational EducationCreative IdeasKnowledge EducationIdeas And CreativityEducation And KnowledgeInspire CreativityCreative ThoughtIdeas And InnovationOld IdeasStudent LearningInspirational EducationalLearning NewNever Stop LearningKnowledge And LearningKnowledge LearningPower Of IdeasBrain PowerInspirational LearningCooperative LearningLearning And GrowingLessons To Be LearnedIntellectual GrowthInspiring EducationalCreating The FutureShort TeacherLearned PersonExperience And LearningCreative Team
Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson
Create image

“Western elites - the beneficiaries of 60 years of peace and prosperity achieved by the sacrifices to defeat fascism and Communism - are unhappy in their late middle age, and show little gratitude for, or any idea about, what gave them such latitude. If they cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all.”

IfsYearsLittlesIdeasShowsAgeHistorySacrificeMiddleGratitudeLatePerfectionWesternDefeatProsperityUnhappyCommunismFascismElitesMiddle AgesLatitudeBeneficiaries
Author:Victor Davis Hanson
Create image

“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?”

YearsMindIdeasScienceTermNatureHistoryMillionsForeverDoubtHard WorkRevolutionBearsEternalMouthsEternityDifficultyInstantProportionRemarkableRejectsCyclesContemplatingDefinitePettyHesitationChronicles
Author:George Julius Poulett Scrope
Create image

“The history of acceptance of new theories frequently shows the following steps: At first the new idea is treated as pure nonsense, not worth looking at. Then comes a time when a multitude of contradictory objections are raised, such as: the new theory is too fancy, or merely a new terminology; it is not fruitful, or simply wrong. Finally a state is reached when everyone seems to claim that he had always followed this theory. This usually marks the last state before general acceptance.”

FirstsIdeasStatesShowsSeemsLastsScienceStepsHistoryAcceptanceTheoryPureClaimsMarkRaisedFollowingTreatedFancyNonsenseNew IdeasMultitudesContradictoryObjectionsTerminology
Book:Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers
Create image

“Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.”

LongBookIdeasRunningScienceLostFearEducationHistoryPathAtheismSourceWeaponsLibertarianRageBurningJailCensorshipLong RunsBad IdeasBannedLimiting GovernmentCensoredCensoringBanned BooksCensorship In BooksLiberal EducationBook BanningBook BurningCensoring BooksBurn Book
Author:Alfred Whitney Griswold
Create image

“Concerned to reconstruct past ideas, historians must approach the generation that held them as the anthropologist approaches an alien culture. They must, that is, be prepared at the start to find that natives speak a different language and map experience into different categories from those they themselves bring from home. And they must take as their object the discovery of those categories and the assimilation of the corresponding language.”

IdeasDifferentHomePastScienceCultureSpeakLanguageHistoryGenerationsObjectsApproachDiscoveryConcernedExperiencePreparedAliensMapsCategoriesHistorianBe PreparedAssimilationCorrespondingAnthropologistsDifferent Languages
Book:Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912
Create image

“The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities-perhaps the only one-in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.”

KnowsHumansIdeasDreamScienceSpeakMistakeHistoryKnow HowLearningProgressFieldsActivityErrorsClarityIrresponsibleEvaluateEndeavourHuman ActivityHistory Of ScienceObstinacyLearning From Our Mistakes
Author:Karl Popper
Create image

“Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth. Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political and cultural idea.”

WorldLooksKindArtIdeasSoulWholeBodyTodayAblePoliticalLiteratureMoralHistoryStruggleYouthTrainingWindowTheaterBillsPressesDenyCinemaManifestationDisplayParallelsPublic LifePostersNazismPoisoningSimulationNazi GermanyRottingMein KampfVaudeville
Author:Adolf Hitler
Create image

“The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.”

WantGivingHumansHas BeensIdeasValuesPassionEnergyHistoryHuman NatureObjectsLettersInstitutionsPropertyActiveConsentRoman EmpireValue Of Money
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Create image

“American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?”

MayLongIdeasSchoolAmericaBusinessEducationHistoryWorstPoliticianIllCurrentsObsessionDestroyingThreateningInfatuationFadsPublic EducationAmerican EducationTycoonsSchool Work
Book:The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
Create image