History Quotes

“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
― Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: Alone

“Horror is the natural reaction to the last 5,000 years of history.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Down to Earth

“Learning the truth has become my life's love.”
― Dan Brown, The da Vinci Code

“Right time, right place, right people equals success.
Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its 'self-help' section: 'For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.”
― Roger Ebert, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie

“The street outside is empty, lit only by a half moon; yet factory engines beat in the background and the working day is about to begin. Maggie steps out of the tenement and suddenly the street begins to fill with women, some running, some pulling their jackets around them, some lighting pipes, some, like Maggie herself, taking a pinch of snuff. From other tenements come other women, and soon all merge into one, like a herd of cattle off to market, clopping over the stone pavements and the cobbles, lowing with last night’s news.”
― Michael Tobert, Karna's Wheel

“Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.”
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

“If reason ruled the world would history even exist?”
― Ryszard Kapuściński

“[On school uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German.”
― George Carlin

“Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?”
“You whacked me on the head with a ball!”
“You deserved it.”
― Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening

“History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.”
― Robin Hobb

“The adrenaline rush subsides as it becomes harder to catch your breath. You become light headed, then dizzy and confused as the air runs out. Reason and sense evaporate as the darkness claims you. That is how it felt to be a Tunnel Rat.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy

“The Minister of Army answered, “Bob, I thought that you would have been an astute and clever enough a politician to think of this yourself, but seeing how you have asked me, I suggest that you wait until eight in the night on Thursday 29/April/1965 to announce that Australia will send the First Battalion Royal Australian Regiment to fight in South Vietnam. By you waiting until the evening of 29/April/1965 to announce this in Parliament, the labour opposition leader of Arthur Caldwell and his deputy leader of Gough Whitlam should be absent, as will be most of the entire parliament, because the following day is the beginning of a long week-
end. You are legally not required to give advanced warning to the house, so you can easily get away with this!”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“Cung went to his section commander Corporal Binh Chien Bui and spoke to him. He said, “Binh, come quickly, something strange is going on!”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?”
Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.”
― Priya Ardis, My Merlin Awakening

“How much evil throughout history could have been avoided had people exercised their moral acuity with convictional courage and said to the powers that be, 'No, I will not. This is wrong, and I don't care if you fire me, shoot me, pass me over for promotion, or call my mother, I will not participate in this unsavory activity.' Wouldn't world history be rewritten if just a few people had actually acted like individual free agents rather than mindless lemmings?”
― Joel Salatin, Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

“Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.”
― Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History?

“History – An account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.”
― Ambrose Bierce

“What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?”
― Thomas Sowell

“Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”
― G K Chesterton

“But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture? He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.
That, said the Dean, is the Parthenon.
- So it is.
- I haven’t the time to waste on silly questions.
- All right, then. - Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. - Shall I tell you what’s rotten about it?
- It’s the Parthenon! - said the Dean.
- Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!
The ruler struck the glass over the picture.
- Look,- said Roark. - The famous flutings on the famous columns – what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood – when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Freaks become norms, and norms become extinct. Monster by monster, evolution advanced”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History

“I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future - the timelessness of the rocks and the hills - all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”
― Andrew Wyeth

“The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.”
― Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

“Somehow the past is a safe place to explore our collective cultural neuroses.”
― Tom Hiddleston

“It was all about the G.I.s overseas. As the war became more of a reality and blue stars on windows were turning to gold stars indicating a soldier’s death, the tensions at home were increasing. Giving what little they could for the war effort was often an act of desperation. Some people made pacts with God to bring their men home hoping beyond hope that it made a difference.”
― A.G. Russo, O'SHAUGHNESSY INVESTIGATIONS, INC.: The Cases Nobody Wanted

“It is easy to sanctify policies or identities by the deaths of victims. It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never that one might become a victim but that one might be a perpetrator or a bystander.”
― Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin