Quotes About History

Pur non potendo fornire cifre precise al riguardo, possiamo affermare che nel 1347 c'erano in Europa occidentale molti più ratti e più pulci di quanto comunemente si crede.

That which seems intuitive to us now is the result of scientific and philosophical elaborations in the past.

Don't take your intuitions and ideas to be "natural": they are often the products of the ideas of audacious thinkers who came before us.

For the first time in the history of mankind, an experiment is made. Experimental science begins with Galileo.

It is the presence of abundant traces of the past that produces the familiar sensation that the past is determined.

Books contain our history; our brains swarm with memories.

You ...see us ...and you think you know us, but our outward guise is more deceptive than our history.

We ...recognize the forces which have been trying to falsify American history—the forces which drive away many Americans to a corner of compromise with those who would distort the ideals of men that died for freedom.

This is also what critical reading of our histories makes possible: we cannot repair what we cannot reconcile; we cannot truly know what we will not truly see.

Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.

Memory is the most potent truth. Show me history untouched by memories and you show me lies.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo había sentenciado el destino de nuestro país [España, pero en realidad el mundo]: matarás y matarte han y matarán a quien te matare.

Man simply cannot live as the time-animal and the art-animal that he is, without history.

Me: What has happened to other civilizations? Oldman/Child: The Earth wanted them all dead. Me: What have we done? Oldman/Child: You have become parasites.

If you look at history, you see that human flourishing exploded beginning about the time two things first appeared: the new American republic and free market capitalism. If you plot the history of human prosperity going back over a thousand years, what you see is a flat line hovering just above zero until the late eighteenth century; then the line turns upward, and it hasn't turned back.

Chemical properties in the peat stop anything from rotting, so bogs are the "bank vaults" of Irish history, protecting whatever is put in them. A bog-cutter recently described finding a slab of butter, still edible after more than a hundred years.

When we view these enormous stone monuments today we see them in gray stone, but this is not how they once were.

Ireland has the oldest literature in Europe in a native language.

The name Cleopatra wakens the world to life.

More money has been lost because of four words than at the point of a gun. Those words are 'This time is different.

The lesson of history, then, is that even as institutions and policy makers improve, there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits. Just as an individual can go bankrupt no matter how rich she starts out, a financial system can collapse under the pressure of greed, politics, and profits no matter how well regulated it seems to be.

In sum, historical experience already shows that rich countries are not as "special" as some cheerleaders had been arguing, both when it comes to managing capital inflows and especially when it comes to banking crises.

There is nothing new except what is forgotten. —Rose Bertin

This time may seem different, but all too often a deeper look shows it is not. Encouragingly, history does point to warning signs that policy makers can look at to assess risk—if only they do not become too drunk with their credit bubble–fueled success and say, as their predecessors have for centuries, "This time is different