Quotes About History

Though a prose writer (of over fifty novels and a journalist and memoirist of forty books of nonfiction), Colette (1873–1954) lives on in literary history as the poet of the flesh—male, female, androgynous, young, aging, old, animal, vegetable. Proust, who praised her "voluptuous and bitter" soul, wept over some of her pages, André Gide "devoured [her] at a gulp.

The Pilgrims landed the Mayflower at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on a cold November day in 1620 because they were running out of beer.

On the voyage from England, beer was their everything. Beer was their fruit and their vegetables in a diet that otherwise consisted of bread, cheese, and meat. Beer was their yogurt with its healing enzymes, and beer was their medicinal spirit. Beer was their water, and beer was their, well, beer.

Drinking, as Eric Burns writes, was our first national pastime—long before baseball was invented.

The Pilgrims believed beer was an unalloyed good, a 'good creature of God.' People who did not drink were suspect and 'crank-brained.

This tension between the colonists' unabashed enjoyment of drink and their contempt for drunkenness was soon expressed in a series of laws, which are still part of the split American character.

Upon all the new settlements the Spaniards make, the first thing they do is build a church," wrote the British captain Thomas Walduck in 1708. "The first thing the Dutch do upon a new colony is to build them a fort, but the first thing the English do, be it in the most remote part of the world, or amongst the most barbarous Indians, is to set up a tavern or drinking house.

When they established a college—Harvard, in 1636—they equipped it with its own brewery.

Since Alexander Hamilton, an increasing percentage of the federal budget had been provided by taxing alcohol. In the early 1900s taxes on liquor made up almost 30 percent of the federal budget—a seemingly implacable obstacle to Prohibition. Now, with the passage of an amendment that allowed a broader tax, the government could give up the alcohol taxes for income taxes.

My husband John's and my breaks are often very culture heavy. He cannot pass a museum without venturing inside, so we tend to see a lot of architecture and so-called places of interest.

Look, I do not control alpinism. But maybe I was too successful. Many in the mountaineering scene - journalists, second-rate climbers, lecturers, so-called historians - had a problem with me for many years.

English football's history is so rich and the size of the clubs around, the so-called big six, are so big that it is difficult to break into that for a club like Leicester.

Burton Cummings joining the Guess Who in January 1966 changed my life forever. It's been a rocky affiliation, no doubt. One journalist once described our relationship as the longest running soap opera in Canadian history. That may be a bit oversimplified.

The whole point here, and the seed that JJ Abrams laid in my mind is, is the power of curiosity enough? What happens next? That dramatic construct is what has driven soap operas and serialised novels over the course of history.

I am excited to bring my deep knowledge, passion and expertise of soccer in this country to The New York Cosmos. They truly represent where this sport is headed on a national and international level, and I want to make history with them.

Argentina is a powerhouse in soccer.

What gets in our way is history and culture and religion and economic conditions. It is part of the hypnosis of our social conditioning.

Peaceful protest is a hallmark of our democracy. It has been in impetus for social change throughout our history.

Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.

An affection for Hong Kong and a national identity are not mutually exclusive. We can let children learn more about Hong Kong's history, culture, politics, and social development, and at the same time, we must make them have their national identity.

Boycotts have been a critical part of social justice in American history, particularly for African-Americans.

Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.

As I review the great history of our nation, community organizers have been at the center of so many of our great social movements.

Not that I wish by any means to deny, that the mental life of individuals and peoples is also in conformity with law, as is the object of philosophical, philological, historical, moral, and social sciences to establish.