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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”

IfsInspirationalLightWomenEducationKnowledgeTeachHistoryTeacherTeachingPositiveYogaEmpowermentMemorableWomen EmpowermentCandleWomens RightsEmpowering WomenServing OthersNineteenth CenturyBest TeacherEmpowered WomenWomen Empowering WomenSuccessful WomenGreat WomenKnowledge Is PowerWomen PowerWomen RightsWomen In HistoryBusiness WomanKnowledge Of The WorldWomen RightKnowledge And LearningKnowledge LearningLearning KnowledgeSharing KnowledgeCandle LightsGreat FemaleLearning From OthersBetter WomanLight And KnowledgeScented Candles
Author:Margaret Fuller
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“Those, who are strongly wedded to what I shall call 'the classical theory', will fluctuate, I expect, between a belief that I am quite wrong and a belief that I am saying nothing new. It is for others to determine if either of these or the third alternative is right.”

IfsBeliefHistoryPowerLearningTheoryEconomicsThirdsDetermineAlternativesNothing NewSaying Nothing
Book:General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
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“What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.”

IfsThinkingMenMadeEnoughMomentsTogetherPurposeJusticeMoralHistoryIssuesInvolvedPeriodsConscienceMarkAidsConfusionGreat MenMutualTrumpetsMoral IssuesMutual Aid
Author:Jane Addams
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“In the old days it would have been a relatively simple matter to have checked Hitler's territorial ambitions. All you'd have needed would have been the 1914 combination of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, if such an alliance had acted decisively to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler might even have been overthrown by his own military. But it was not to be.”

IfsHas BeensMatterMightSimpleHistoryMilitaryNeededAmbitionRussiaFranceCombinationBritainAlliancesOld DaysTerritorialCzechoslovakia
Author:Niall Ferguson
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“In general, life is better than it has ever been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word : Dentistry.”

IfsThinkingAgeAblePastLife IsPleasureHistoryHumourLet MeGoldenPlentyTransportGolden AgeSingle WordDentistry
Book:All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
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“If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWellsLooksLittlesBookHardUsedGirlEducationBoysHistoryFateTroubleVolumeTormentFillingLittle BoysBoy And Girl
Book:Jane Austen: The Works in Eight Volumes
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“Anyone, however, who has had dealings with dates knows that they are worse than elusive, they are perverse. Events do not happen at the right time, nor in their proper sequence. That sense of harmony with place and season which is so strong in the historian--if he be a readable historian--is lamentably lacking in history, which takes no pains to verify his most convincing statements.”

IfsKnowsHappensPainStrongHistoryEventsSeasonsHarmonyStatementsHistorianLackingRight TimeConvincingSequenceElusiveDealingsNo PainVerify
Book:To Think of Tea!
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“History, the winnowing wind, never halts. We see the chaff rise, forget the waiting grain, seed of the future, fallen to the threshing floor. We never learn, but live on, slit-narrow, as if our living were a pencil line traced upon paper, behaving as trapped denizens of a flat world hemmed in by the bigoted horizon of our own making. Yet the meaning of living is a pushing back, a pulling down of the great walls and domes of fear and ignorance, is relinquishing the nest for the sky, ignorance for understanding. The look back is also a look forward.”

IfsWorldLooksPastWaitingUnderstandingLinesForgetHistorySkyIgnoranceWindWallPaperSeedsFallenPushingFlatsHorizonGrainTrappedPullingPencilsNestsHaltDomesSlitsRelinquishingGreat WallPushing Back
Author:Han Suyin
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“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.”

IfsMayArtTwoActionSocialNaturalPleasureHistoryEconomyRegardReputationFormerCharmProductiveVirtuousDispositionPrivate LifeIntercourseRefinedRoman EmpirePropensity
Book:History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V1: the History Focus
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“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.”

IfsMenMayStatesActionParentAbilityPrinciplesHistoryVirtueEqualAmbitionStrongerSafetyProsperityRevengeEmpiresBenevolenceDoubtfulRoman EmpireProprietyIndebtedSingle ManUndaunted
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The chaste severity of the fathers in whatever related to the commerce of the two sexes flowed from the same principle -- their abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favourite opinion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings.”

IfsMenTwoStatesMightSpiritualFatherSexRaceOpinionPrinciplesHistoryCreatorInnocentSensualObedienceRelatedEnjoymentParadisePurityImmortalAdamFavouriteCommerceVirginsRoman EmpireDegradeNature Of ManChasteSeverityE CommerceAbhorrenceSpiritual NatureVegetation
Book:History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V1: the History Focus
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“History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.”

IfsAgePastCausesHistoryRecordsOfficeDeserveIllJustifyTyrantsInstructionPersecutionMaximsRoman EmpireTransactions
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude that, if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more frequently been insulted by fiction.”

IfsSometimesDreamEyeUnderstandingFictionHistoryReaderMiracleCalmPhilosopherFraudSuspicionDeceivedSpectatorsRoman EmpireInsultedProfaneOmenProdigies
Book:History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V2: the History Focus
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“An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the favour of Heaven if he maintained the idle at the expense of the industrious, and distributed among the saints the wealth of the republic.”

IfsShouldMayHeavenWealthHistoryRichAbsolutesSaintMeritExpensesRepublicIdleFavourRoman EmpireCharitableMonarchsIndustriousConstantinePatrimony
Book:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“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.”

IfsWorldHas BeensGovernmentOrderChurchHistoryViolenceCitizensDifficultyInjusticePrivilegePunishmentMinistersRepublicVirtuousDelayCautionEmperorBishopsHesitationCondemnationRoman Empire
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)
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“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.”

PeopleIfsMadeCharacterWould BeHistoryClimateSatisfactionEastMannersGreekEnjoymentProductiveMutualWarmthLivelyRoman EmpireFlatteredSoftnessHereditaryTranquillityOpulenceConnexionAntioch
Book:The Student's Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness.”

PeopleIfsWorldLongStillsLibertyVisionHistoryGreatnessMastersPrideConsciousAncientBreadRememberedAncestorRepresentationAssuranceAccustomedRoman Empire
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.”

IfsMayGovernmentEnemyHistoryEffectsProduceWeakAssumingAppearanceMinistersCouncilDistractedPursuedRoman EmpireCorrespondenceIncapacityPublic Enemies
Book:The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition
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“If a beach-head of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

IfsWorldFirstsMayLawStrongSidesHistoryPlanetsBalanceThousandCreatingHundredWeakLifetimeFinishedSecureAdministrationBeachEndeavorCooperationNew WorldSuspicionBoth SidesJungleBalance Of Power
Author:John F. Kennedy
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“... if, as women, we accept a philosophy of history that asserts that women are by definition assimilated into the male universal,that we can understand our past through a male lens--if we are unaware that women even have a history--we live our lives similarly unanchored, drifting in response to a veering wind of myth and bias.”

IfsPhilosophyPastAcceptingHistoryOur LivesWindUniversalResponseMalesDefinitionsMythBiasOur PastLensesDrifting
Book:Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985
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“If, then, this civilization is to be saved, if it is not to be submerged by centuries of barbarism, but to secure the treasures ofits inheritance on new and more stable foundations, there is indeed need for those now living fully to realize how far the decay has already progressed.”

IfsWorldNeedsWarRealizingHistoryCenturyCivilizationFoundationSavedTreasureSecureWar Of The WorldsWorld War IiStableWorld War IDecayInheritanceBarbarismSubmergedIf ThenLiving Fully
Author:Johan Huizinga
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“We are living in a demented world. And we know it. It would not come as a surprise to anyone if tomorrow the madness gave way to afrenzy which would leave our poor Europe in a state of distracted stupor, with engines still turning and flags streaming in the breeze, but with the spirit gone.”

IfsKnowsWorldWayStillsWarStatesSpiritPoorHistoryGoneTomorrowEuropeMadnessSurpriseWar Of The WorldsEnginesWorld War IiFlagsWorld War IBreezeDistractedStreamingDemented
Author:Johan Huizinga
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“For if I should not believe all that is written by Historians, of the glorious acts of Alexander, or Caesar; I do not think the Ghost of Alexander, or Caesar, had any just cause to be offended; or any body else, but the Historian. If Livy say the Gods made once a Cow speak, and we believe it not; we distrust not God therein, but Livy. So that it is evident, that whatsoever we believe, upon no other reason, then what is drawn from authority of men only, and their writings; whether they be sent from God or not, is Faith in men only.”

IfsThinkingMenShouldWritingBelieveMadeReasonBodyReligionFaithSpeakCausesHistoryWrittenAuthorityGhostGloriousHistorianCowsEvidentDistrustOffended
Book:Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised student edition
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“A revolution is not the overturning of a cart, a reshuffling in the cards of state. It is a process, a swelling, a new growth in the race. If it is real, not simply a trauma, it is another ring in the tree of history, layer upon layer of invisible tissue composing the evidence of a circle.”

IfsRealStatesProcessGrowthChangeRaceHistoryTreeRevolutionEvidenceTraumaRingsCirclesInvisibleCardsLayersComposingTissuesCartsSwellingNew Growth
Book:Flying
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