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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“History is a stern judge.”

Decision History Judging

Author:Svetlana Alliluyeva

“The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.”

History Objects Judging Mirrors Impartiality

Author:Alphonse de Lamartine

“His sumptuous tents, and those of his satraps, afforded an immense booty to the conqueror; and an incident is mentioned which proves the rustic but martial ignorance of the legions in the elegant superfluities of life. A bag of shining leather, filled with pearls, fell into the hands of a private soldier; he carefully preserved the bag, but he threw away its contents, judging that whatever was of no use could not possibly be of any value.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1

“History will not judge our endeavors--and a government cannot be selected--merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.”

Government Party History Color Judging Essentials Bases Loyalty Endeavor Creeds Competence Selected Stature Affiliation

Author:John F. Kennedy

“We have to transpose ourselves into this impressionability of mind, into this sensitivity to tears and spiritual repentance, intothis susceptibility, before we can judge how colorful and intensive life was then.”

Mind Spiritual History Tears Judging Repentance Sensitivity Colorful Susceptibility

Author:Johan Huizinga

“What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?”

Men Truth Universe History Subjects Judging Pride All Things Errors Chaos Refuse Monsters Uncertainty Contradiction Resolve Novelty Imbeciles Prodigies Sewers

Author:Blaise Pascal

“You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was.”

World Doe Past History Judging Ought Office Contemporary Yield

Author:Leopold von Ranke

“History teaches the young the virtues of freedom. By apprising them of the past it will enable them to judge the future.”

Past Young Teach History Virtue Judging

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.”

Want Should History Judging Picks Fbi Umpires

Author:William O. Douglas