Quotes About History

I bought my first electric car in 1970. Its top speed was 15 mph and it had just a 15 mile range - it was essentially a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn.

If you go back to the really long-run questions that interested me, the big question was why, over the centuries, the millennia, has growth been speeding up?

I don't even know how to spell 'legacy!'

It's a funny thing about cities: Some have brief, bright moments of cultural and political dominance, decades- or centuries-long spells when they seem the center of their particular nation, or region, or empire... only to later fall into obscurity and disrepair, never to regain their former glory.

We could imagine nothing pleasanter than to spend all of our lives digging for relics of the past.

Fox and I go way back... I got to know the Fox folks pretty well as the result of spending time at races with them over the years.

The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.

One of the advantages of getting elected governor when you're 58 instead of 38 is you have some mileage on you and part of that means some history and some relationships with people who have spent a fair amount of their career in the public and in the private sector.

The lion's share of what I hear right now are people who, intentional or accidental, have avoided all jazz prior to 1960. And all the musicians who were successful in the '60s spent their entire lives, prior to 1960, listening to all the musicians these people avoid.

Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history.

My first years were spent living just as my forefathers had lived - roaming the green, rolling hills of what are now the states of South Dakota and Nebraska.

I'm exploring the long history of women, first of all, being silenced and, secondly, not being taken seriously in the political and public sphere. It's a call to action through understanding and through looking at ourselves again and trying to reformulate the whole question of women and power.

The pyramid once passed there was still a short way to go before we confronted the Sphinx, in the middle of what our contemporaries have left him of his desert.

London was a spice mecca. The first recipe for curry in English was actually published in 1747.

Regular readers will know that curries are my favourite thing, and I wanted to go back to the start and really research the history and philosophy of Indian cuisine, rather than just toasting spices, slow-cooking onions. I was hungry to understand this food that I love so much.

I don't think 'Jurassic Park' could have been so much fun had Spielberg not made a 'Schindler's List.'

Werner Herzog, I knew him for so many years, when Fassbinder was at his highest moment. But we had a rule: An actor from Fassbinder could never work with an actor of Werner Herzog or Wim Wenders. Because if we would have done that, we would have been spies. 'Ah, you worked with Werner - how was it? How did he direct you?' I was Fassbinder's actor.

Bob Monkhouse, Galton and Simpson, Spike Milligan and I all started around the same time with an enormous advantage: working to an audience all of whom had shared an awful, common experience - the war.

My books are written with a strong chronological spine.

Joan of Arc was born 600 years ago. Six centuries is a long time to continue to mark the birth of a girl who, according to her family and friends, knew little more than spinning and watching over her father's flocks.

From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

Art is great. At its best, it engages the intellect and challenges the spirit; it connects us across history and reminds us of our humanity.

You know, ever since man had any notion that some of his other people, his colleagues, could be different, could be strange, could be severely depressed or what we now recognize as schizophrenia, he was certain that this kind of illness had to come from evil spirits getting into the body.