Best history & reality Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“The pursuit of truth is just a polite name for the intellectual's favorite pastime of substituting simple and therefore false abstractions for the living complexities of reality.”

Art Philosophy Reality Names Simple History Truth Is Intellectual Pursuit Complexity Polite Abstraction Pastime

Book:The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Point counter point

Source: The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Point counter point

“Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela's former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.”

“Odd how often blood is shed to obtain freedom from those in power. Oppressors must be the most insecure people in the world.”

“Prostitution thrives in the United States. We focus in this country on punishing the girls. For every brothel owner or pimp or male customer, there are 50 girls who are arrested for being prostitutes. Other countries have tried the other way around, and it works beautifully...they bring the charges against the brothel owners and the pimps and the male customers, and they do not prosecute the girls, who quite often are brought into that trade involuntarily. It works quite well, by the way.”

“Director Ken Burns revealed that his next documentary is about Franklin Roosevelt, and it's fourteen hours long...which sounds like too much, until you realize there's been over thirty hours of TV dedicated to Honey Boo Boo.”

Long Reality Next Politics Sound Realizing Community Hours History Comedy Too Much Tvs Directors Thirty Honey Dedicated Documentaries Franklin Fourteen Boo Boo Honey Boo Boo

Author:Jimmy Fallon

“Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970.”

“Ultimately, only diplomacy can bring about a durable solution to the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear program. As President and Commander in Chief, I will do what is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. However, I have a profound responsibility to try to resolve our differences peacefully, rather than rush towards conflict.”

“You know, we did a good job in containing the Soviet Union, but we made a lot of mistakes, we supported really nasty guys, we did some things that we are not particularly proud of, from Latin America to Southeast Asia, but we did have a kind of overarching framework about what we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it.”

“There is one lesson from the past, in particular, that we cannot afford to ignore: You cannot make progress on gender equality or broader human development, without safeguarding women's reproductive health and rights.”

“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate.Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the "Principe," has determined the development of European history ever since.”

Has Beens Reality Able Courses Opportunity Views Principles History Violence Development Europe Determined Compromise Exploits Glorify European History

Author:Stefan Zweig

“...It's all sort of dreams and it's all illusion. It's theater; it's not real. We're making up stories, you know, and people tend to run into you and believe you are your characters. And I suppose the funny thing is the longer you go, you do become sort of some version of [your characters]. You both diverge from them - you know - you live, but you also permanently inhabit that geography and that mental space - and so you do morph a little bit. We do become what we imagine.”

“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.”

“[Fighting Climate Change] is important for every single person on the planet, which is why it has to be the greatest grassroots movement of all time. This is the battle of our lives. We're fighting for our children.”

“My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack.”

“Congress needs to send a strong signal that direct communication with the leader of the free world is a privilege, particularly for a regime that has been as hostile as Iran has been towards America for more than three decades. President Rouhani needs to take these two simple steps to demonstrate good faith before any further discussions.”

“I'm so sick and tired of all this violence, this gun violence. And how could I speak on it - you know - being one who has advocated violence and gun violence? The only way I could do it was through a song that spoke from the heart.”

“[Putin] is a bully. And bullies only understand when we punch them in the nose, but we need to do that economically.”

“It is a law of nature that everything run by the government will get more expensive and worse over time. Everything run by the private sector will get better and cheaper over time. The fact that [Obamacare] starts this badly does not bode well....We want healthcare run on the same system that gave us cell phones, flat screens, Jerry Garcia chia pets. Everything you submit to the free market...keeps getting better and better.”

“I'll tell you...why Wonder Woman worked. Or Bionic Woman. Or any of those [shows] really. It was because it wasn't about brawn...it was about brains. And yes, she happened to be beautiful, she happened to be kind of extraordinary in some way, but she wasn't a guy. And I think that, [now], they...put out a female hero, and all they are doing is changing the costume from a man to a woman...they're not showcasing any of the tremendous dichotomies than women possess in term of softness and toughness, sweetness and grit, inner and outer strength.”

“No one understands that the First Amendment is only important if you are going to offend somebody. If you're not going to offend somebody, you don't need protection of the First Amendment.”

Ifs Needs Firsts Important Reality History Constitution Protection Amendments Free Speech First Amendment Disobedience Civil Disobedience

Author:Larry Flynt

“...I tried to kill myself. It was a feeble attempt, but I did. And I got put in a mental hospital for a month, and I got myself straight and worked on my mental health...it's nothing that I hide. It's nothing to be proud of or to be ashamed of. It's part of my life, you know? And I'm still here!”

Knows Stills Wisdom Reality Community History Health Months Proud Mental Health Ashamed Hospitals Be Proud

Author:Audra McDonald

“In the 2012 election, Obamacare, as it's called, and I'll be more polite - the ACA ...was a major issue in the campaign. I campaigned all over America for two months, everywhere I could. And in every single campaign rally I said, 'We have to repeal and replace Obamacare.' Well, the people spoke. They spoke, much to my dismay, but they spoke. And they reelected the President of the United States.”

“In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield - however despicable - are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution. No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn't be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.”

“Someone is an ignoramus who would say that, 'Oh, we had three hurricanes this year. This proves that somehow the climate is warming.' The earth is 4.5 billion years old, and you're going to say that we had four hurricanes and so it proves a theory?”

Years Reality Earth Science Three Politics Nature Party History Four Generations Theory Prove Climate Billions Ideology Tea Free Speech Hurricanes Tea Party

Author:Rand Paul

“Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything-it can stop the Vietnam War. It can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.”

“I believe the gun has no power because a gun can only kill, but a pen can give life.”

“Putting women's traditional needs at the center of social planning is not reverse sexism. It's the best way to reverse the increasing economic vulnerability of men and women alike.”

“If [President Obama] does not go on the offensive against ISIS...they are coming here. This is just not about Baghdad, this is just not about Syria, this is about our homeland. And if we get attacked because he has no strategy to protect us, then he will have committed a blunder for the ages.”

“[Wendy] Davis [pursued] higher education, as her campaign website says, with 'the help of academic scholarships, student loans, and state and federal grants.' Now that she is in a high-profile and hotly partisan race, it has come out that she also benefited from the moral and financial support of her second - now ex - husband. In the process, though, behavior we would expect and hardly notice in a man is being portrayed as freakish and problematic in a woman.”

“There is not an inherent contradiction between a Ukraine that has longstanding historic and cultural ties to Russia, and a modern Ukraine that wants to integrate more closely with Europe.”

Want Reality Politics Community History Generations Modern Policy Europe Strategy Russia Ideology Ties Contradiction Foreign Policy Inherent Historic Ukraine Integrating

Author:Susan Rice

“We're in a political depression - a great political depression”

Reality Political Politics Community Party History Political Parties Great Political

Author:Chuck Todd

“The really great athletes make their news on the field, not off the field.”

Wisdom Reality Leadership Class History Human Nature Fields News Strategy Individuality Athlete Really Great Civility Great Athlete

Author:Jimmy Haslam

“Look, we'll have to confront the pathologies of poverty at some point. We can deal with them cheaply at the front end, in infancy. Or we can wait and jail a troubled adolescent at the tail end. To some extent, we face a choice between investing in preschools or in prisons.”

“It sounds funny to say, but we saw [Kate's wedding to Prince William] as just a family wedding. And actually, I didn't realize - perhaps - the scale of it until afterwards. We all took on the roles as any family would.”

Reality Sound Realizing Family Roles History Saws Scales Kate Family History

Author:Pippa Middleton

“[Michael] Brown's mom, Lesley McSpadden, is the latest African American mother whose tear-streaked face forces the nation to remember the name of yet another unarmed black teenager gunned down under questionable circumstances.”

“It's a struggle every day, to stay present, not to become that...eight year old who was bullied and chased home from school. Some days I wake up and it's like I'm eight years old again. And I'm scared for my life, and I don't know if I'm going to be beaten up that day.”

Ifs Knows Years Home Reality School History Struggle Violence Equal Wake Up Human Rights Scared Eight Beaten Equal Rights Bullied

Author:Laverne Cox

“A lot of Democrats have said that raising the minimum wage is both good economics and good politics. The nonpartisan CBO issued a report today saying that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would cost the economy about 500,000 jobs...Why should we trust Democrats on anything when they couldn't have foreseen that this would be the case?”

“In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.”

Men Long Has Beens War Reality Term Religious History Conflict Long Term Nature Of Man Religious Wars Religion War Religion And War Religious Conflict Causes Of Conflict

Author:Richard M. Nixon

“Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards.”

Art Philosophy Reality History Picks Bones Graveyard

Author:Samuel Beckett

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

“History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.”

Reality History Originals Historical Copies Gallery Fake People Democracy In America

Author:Alexis de Tocqueville

“Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.”

Art Matter Reason Philosophy Reality History Relation Our Thoughts Orthodoxy

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquities.”

Reality Memories History Passing Passings Witness Guidance Daily Life Antiquity Tidings History Of Life

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The historian amputates reality.”

Reality History Historian

Author:Gaetano Salvemini

“Every work of history constructs contexts and designs, forms in which past reality can be comprehended. History creates comprehensibility primarily by arranging facts meaningfully and only in a very limited sense by establishing strict causal connections.”

Inspirational Facts Reality Motivational Past Form History Design Connections Strict Constructs Arranging

Book:Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance

Source: Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance

“[B]inary opposites fit nicely the formulation of history as written, but they do little to capture the messy, inchoate reality of history as lived.”

Littles Reality History Written Fit Opposites Capture Messy

Book:Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America

Source: Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America

“Your past history and all of your hurts are no longer here in your physical reality. Don't allow them to be here in your mind, muddying your present moments. Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much longer. But all are necessary, otherwise they wouldn't be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.”

“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow men's existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history.”

Ifs Men Enough Reality Form Strong Existence History Novel Pride Shame Fellows Conviction Episodes Documentaries Fellow Man Strong Enough Selected

Book:The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad

Source: The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad

“Everything is a dangerous drug except reality which is unendurable.”

Reality History Dangerous Drug Unendurable Dangerous Drugs

Author:Cyril Connolly

“If we have no other reality beyond the illusion, you too must not count overmuch on your reality as you feel it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.”

Feels May Reality Today History Too Much Tomorrow Prove Survival Illusion Yesterday Counting

Author:Luigi Pirandello

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