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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.”

Should Ends Pleasure History British Accomplished Instruction Thrilling Illumination Succession British History Narrators

Book:A History of Britain: At the edge of the world? 3000 BC-AD 1603

Source: A History of Britain: At the edge of the world? 3000 BC-AD 1603

“Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”

Ifs Should Dies History Generations Century Civilization Savages Interrupted Transmission

Book:The Lessons of History

Source: The Lessons of History

“We need open minds and open hearts when we wrestle with the past and ask questions of it, and the answers it will provide are in nobody's pocket... We should let nobody tell us that they know all that it contains, or try to prescribe or constrain in advance what it has to tell us.”

Knows Needs Should Trying Mind Heart Past Asks Answers History Pockets Open Mind Open Heart Constrain

Book:Faith of Our Fathers

Source: Faith of Our Fathers

“History is not the story of strangers, aliens from another realm; it is the story of us had we been born a little earlier. History is memory; we have to remember what it is like to be a Roman, or a Jacobite or a Chartist or even - if we dare, and we should dare - a Nazi. History is not abstraction, it is the enemy of abstraction.”

Ifs Should Littles Stories Remember Born Memories Enemy History Dare Stranger Aliens Realms Nazi Abstraction

Author:Stephen Fry

“Kinship among nations is not determined in such measurements as proximity of size and age. Rather we should turn to those inner things - call them what you will - I mean those intangibles that are the real treasures free men possess.”

Men Should Mean Real Age Turns Nations History Size Determined Treasure Measurement World War 2 Free Man Kinship Proximity

Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower

“No historian should be trusted implicitly.”

Should History Historian Trusted

Author:George Kitson Clark

“The philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects in every aspect of a person's life. It ultimately makes people protective of the environment in a very committed way. It is my opinion that the study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists.”

“Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.”

Men Should Humans Ends Age Race History Youth Illusion Human Race Feds Cynicism Altruism Renounce

Book:Greatest Works of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Duel, Lord Jim, Victory, The Shadow-Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus & Under Western Eyes: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)

Source: Greatest Works of Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Duel, Lord Jim, Victory, The Shadow-Line, The Arrow of Gold, The Secret Agent, The Nigger of the Narcissus & Under Western Eyes: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)

“Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.”

Should History Wind Roots Criticism South East Knives

Book:Emerson: A Modern Anthology

Source: Emerson: A Modern Anthology

“It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.”

World Should Has Beens Seems Would Be Science Courses Next Hours History Generations Childhood Strange Obvious Improvement Extras Adopted Next Generation Daylight

Author:Arthur Conan Doyle

“The earth's becoming at a particular period the residence of human beings, was an era in the moral, not in the physical world, that our study and contemplation of the earth, and the laws which govern its animate productions, ought no more to be considered in the light of a disturbance or deviation from the system, than the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter should be regarded as a physical event in the history of those heavenly bodies, however influential they may have become from that time in advancing the progress of sound philosophy among men.”

Source: Principles of Geology

“If a little less time was devoted to the translation of letters by Julius Caesar describing Britain 2000 years ago and a little more time was spent on teaching children how to describe (in simple modern English) the method whereby ethylene was converted into polythene in 1933 in the ICI laboratories at Northwich, and to discussing the enormous social changes which have resulted from this discovery, then I believe that we should be training future leaders in this country to face the world of tomorrow far more effectively than we are at the present time.”

“A multidisciplinary study group ... estimated that it would be 1980 before developments in artificial intelligence make it possible for machines alone to do much thinking or problem solving of military significance. That would leave, say, five years to develop man-computer symbiosis and 15 years to use it. The 15 may be 10 or 500, but those years should be intellectually the most creative and exciting in the history of mankind.”

Source: In memoriam, J.C.R. Licklider, 1915-1990

“It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation, that the position of the individual is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole.”

Should Whole Individual Nations Interest Realizing Existence History Position Ego Importance Comparison Nazism Nazi Germany

Book:Adolf Hitler from Speeches 1933-1938

Source: Adolf Hitler from Speeches 1933-1938

“Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages or to the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the individual with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.”

Should Years Philosophy Individual Language Nations Growth History Study Taught Theory Birth Kings Battle Accounts Useless Devoted Acquisition Birth And Death Great Battle

Author:Robert Green Ingersoll

“It is scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated.”

Men Should Mind Long Government Eye Spirit Causes Levels Secret History Fire Military Genius Corruption Poison Empires Decay Uniforms Roman Empire Felicity Latent

Author:Edward Gibbon

“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

“In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspaper should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.”

Should Purpose Father Views History Saws New York Newspapers Posts Courageous Serving Founding Deserving New York Times Condemnation

Author:Hugo Black

“To be hopeful in bad times is based on the fact that human history is not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

“What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.”

Source: On Europe