Home / Topics / History Quotes

History Quotes

Browse 6202 quotes about History.

History Quotes

“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 more I think you over, the more it comes home to me what an unmitigated Middle Victorian ass you are!”

Thinking Home History Middle Ass Coming Home Victorian

Author:H. L. Mencken

“In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.”

Hands Community Cities History Middle Seats Labour Commerce Respectable Roman Empire Subsistence Dexterity

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 Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.”

Source: The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution

“We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.”

“Americans, more than most people, believe that history is the result of individual decisions to implement conscious intentions. For Americans, more than most people, history has been that.... This sense of openness, of possibility and autonomy, has been a national asset as precious as the topsoil of the Middle West. But like topsoil, it is subject to erosion; it requires tending. And it is not bad for Americans to come to terms with the fact that for them too, history is a story of inertia and the unforeseen.”

People Believe Has Beens Facts Stories Individual Term Decision Results History Middle Subjects Possibility Conscious Intention West Assets Openness Autonomy Inertia Erosion Unforeseen Topsoil

Author:George Will

“In western civilization, the period ruled by mysticism is known as the 'Dark Ages' and the 'Middle Ages'. I will assume that you know the nature of that period and the state of human existence in those ages. The Renaissance broke the rules of the mystics. "Renaissance" means the "rebirth". Few people today will care to remind you that it was a rebirth of reason - of man's mind.”

“This (Vietnam) was a land of rebellious barons. It was like Europe in the Middle Ages. But what were the Americans doing here? Columbus had not yet discovered their country.”

Country Age History Land Middle Europe Vietnam Middle Ages Rebellious Columbus

Author:Graham Greene

“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”

Political Games Politics History Middle Worst Majority

Book:THE TRUE BELIEVER

Source: THE TRUE BELIEVER

“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.”

Ifs Years Littles Ideas Shows Age History Sacrifice Middle Gratitude Late Perfection Western Defeat Prosperity Unhappy Communism Fascism Elites Middle Ages Latitude Beneficiaries

Author:Victor Davis Hanson

“Some years ago John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in an essay on his efforts at writing a history of economics: 'As one approaches the present, one is filled with a sense of hopelessness; in a year and possibly even a month, there is now more economic comment in the supposedly serious literature than survives from the whole of the thousand years commonly denominated as the Middle Ages ... anyone who claims to be familiar with it all is a confessing liar.' I believe that all physicists would subscribe to the same sentiments regarding their own professional literature. I do at any rate.”