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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“Nathan Bedford Forrest ... used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. He liked horses because he liked fast movement, and his mounted men could get from here to there much faster than any infantry could; but when they reached the field they usually tied their horses to trees and fought on foot, and they were as good as the very best infantry. Not for nothing did Forrest say the essence of strategy was to git thar fust with the most men.”

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Book:American Heritage History of the Civil War
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“History is not truth versus falsehoods, but a mixture of both, a mélange of tendencies, reactions, dreams, errors, and power plays. What's important is what we make of it; its moral use. By writing history, we can widen readers' thinking and deepen their sympathies in every direction. Perhaps history should show us not how to control the world, but how to enlarge, deepen, and discipline ourselves.”

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Book:Heart Mountain
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“His manners were less pure, but his character was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.”

WellsTwoCharacterUseFatherLeftBehindsHistoryThousandPureTwentiesLibraryProductionsFormerVarietyMannersLatterSixtyVolumeInclinationLeft BehindRoman EmpireAmiableTwenty TwoOstentationConcubines
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular.”

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Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“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.”

UseHandsValuesHistoryIgnoranceJudgingProveFilledShiningSoldierBagsImmensePearlsElegantIncidentsLeatherRoman EmpireConquerorTentsLegionBootyRusticSumptuous
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1
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“In their censures of luxury the fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial; and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate false hair, garments of any colour except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or silver, downy pillows, white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and am impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator.”

MayUseFacesLyingFatherWhitePracticeHistoryMinutesHairGoldInstrumentsWineVariousCreatorWarmBreadLuxuryColourSilverArticlesBathsBeardPillowGarmentsPiousRoman EmpireIndignationCensureShavingVasesSalutationsWhite Bread
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.”

YearsMindEndsUseDecisionEffortSituationHistoryHappenedBrotherAuthorityResourcesEastInstantFavouriteEldersPrudenceDeprivedEmperorAdmirableRoman EmpireAmbiguousGoth
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits which may be obtained by a moderate use of conquest, and a just apprehension lest the desolation which we inflict on the enemy's country may be retaliated on our own. But these considerations of hope and fear are almost unknown in the pastoral state of nations.”

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Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.”

MenShouldDoeUseShowsPainLawPurposeForceHistoryConditionsDangerousMoralityEasierProtectLaborPropertyPainfulTendenciesCollectivesEvidentResortsPlunder
Author:Frederic Bastiat
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“Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future, the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit.”

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Book:Another Roadside Attraction
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“Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.”

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Book:An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion
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“Today social justice represents one of the most serious challenges to the conscience of the world. The abyss between those who are within the world 'order' and those who are excluded is widening day by day. The use of leading-edge technologies has made it possible to accumulate wealth in a way that is fantastic but perverse because it is unjustly distributed. Twenty-percent of humankind control eighty percent of all means of life. That fact creates a dangerous imbalance in the movement of history.”

WorldWayMeanMadeFactsUseTodayOrderSocialChallengesWealthJusticeHistoryTechnologyDangerousMovementSeriousPercentConscienceTwentiesSocial JusticeEdgesInequalityMade ItFantasticHumankindUnjustAbyssTheologianDistributionEightyWorld OrderExcludedImbalancePerverseness
Book:The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today
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“For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.”

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Book:Bacon's Advancement of Learning and the New Atlantis
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“In the expressions we adopt to prescribe physical phenomena we necessarily hover between two extremes. We either have to choose a word which implies more than we can prove, or we have to use vague and general terms which hide the essential point, instead of bringing it out. The history of electrical theories furnishes a good example.”

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Author:Arthur Schuster
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“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.”

ThinkingMenShouldYearsMayUseProblemWould BeScienceHistoryCreativeStudyFiveGroupsMankindMilitaryDevelopmentComputerIntellectualMachinesExcitingFive YearsSignificanceArtificial IntelligenceArtificialProblem SolvingSymbiosisStudy GroupMultidisciplinary
Book:In memoriam, J.C.R. Licklider, 1915-1990
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“Certainly I shall use the police, and most ruthlessly, whenever the German people are hurt. But I refuse the notion that the police are protective troops for Jewish stores. No, the police protect whoever comes into Germany legitimately, but it does not exist for the purpose of protecting Jewish money-lenders.”

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Author:Hermann Goring
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“Better contraceptives will control population only if people will use them. A nuclear holocaust can be prevented only if the conditions under which nations make war can be changed. The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. We need to make vast changes in human behavior.”

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Author:B. F. Skinner
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