Quotes About History

For now, suffice it to say that the foundations for our modern democratic world originated, not in Europe, but in the northeastern corner of North America.

From 1965 to 1967, my dad, Jack Gilligan, served in Congress and helped pass landmark laws like the Voting Rights Act.

secondhand bookstores have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

Kintsugi [is] not just a method of repair but also a philosophy. It's the belief that the breaks, cracks, and repairs become a valuable and esteemed part of the history of an object, rather than something to be hidden. That, in fact, the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

The Communist regime didn't consider this to be a shining moment in history and assigned no heroism to it. They classified it as merely an accident.

This is because the Greeks had it backward, and no matter how hard humans try thinking otherwise, they still think like Greeks. For the Greeks, when you looked ahead all you saw was the past. It was like the past was the future.

Everybody thinks it's going to be different for them, Janice said. The dinosaurs thought so too.

History is boring, Janice concurred, undaunted as usual. It's not like the Ride of the Valkyries. It's what comes before history that isn't boring.

The 1643 Martyrologie des chevaliers (Martyrology of knights)

Catharism placed no value on one sex over the other; not only did it attract women as converts, but it invited them into the clergy.

There's nothing like the feel of an old book in your hands.

The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.

Doing field archaeology can be a labor of love, with the accent on labor.

97 days earlier

Elizabeth Báthory

Violence against women is not a recent phenomenon. The bones of my sisters litter history and prehistory. The mass grave at Cahokia. The sacred cenote at Chichén Itzá. The Iron Age girl in the bog, hair shorn, blindfolded and leashed. Women are conditioned to be wary. Walk faster at the sound of footsteps. Peek through the hole before opening the door. Stand by the controls in the empty elevator. Fear the dark. Was Primrose simply another marcher in a random parade of female victims?

Both Merkel and Obama read Yuval Harari's somewhat ponderous Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind for pleasure. And though their tastes are widely different, both find escape and relaxation in music.

Concentrate on the question. Oooh, interesting. I haven't seen that stone in that position before. Have you had a history of spontaneous combustion in your family?" His eyes widened in surprise. I grinned."Just kidding.

Prohibition! Everyone loves a flapper dress or a fake tommy gun, but who remembers the thousands of people who went blind drinking unregulated wood alcohol?

Apple is another word that has always meant itself. In fact, it used to apply to any fruit, vegetable, or even nut. All fruits were apples. The potato was the apple of the earth (and still is in French: pomme de terre). Dates were finger apples. The banana was, in Middle English, the apple of paradise.

We should never, ever believe life- or history- holds no surprises for us. That way lies arrogance. And arrogance can blind us to the truth . . . Any truth. All truth.

Imagine – hundreds of years of constant learning. It's truly amazing.

He kept his hands off the plastic tablecloth. It was a museum of past meals.

It was a museum of past meals.