Quotes About History

From 235, over a period of 50 years, 49 men were proclaimed emperor by different groups of soldiers. We know that at least 25 of them were killed, not counting the three who committed suicide and one who seems to have been struck by lightning. In fact, apart from Gothicus, only one of them is known to have died a natural death – Valerian, who held on to the job for seven years and was safely locked away as a prisoner of the Persians when he expired in 260.

Oddly enough, fear seems to have played a key role in the history of Rome, and despite the might and power of the Romans, there is something curiously desperate about their whole story. It's almost as if the grandeur of Rome was born of paranoia and desperation.

They agreed to pay 5000 lb of gold, 30,000 of silver, 3000 scarlet sheepskins (the Goths must have been a very well turned out army) and 3000 lb of pepper (they were already, of course, well seasoned).

Everything that ever happened is just stories now, Earl. But it was all very real to people while it was happening. Wasn't it?

No oak trees without acorns' may be a formally true proposition, but that this acorn did in fact produce this oak tree, there and then, is not a teleological necessity; it is a circumstantial occurrence" (OH 104-5). Because history is what happened, not what must have happened, there is no room in an authentic historical explanation for teleological causes.

Empirical reality becomes nature when we view it with respect to its universal characteristics; it becomes history when we view it as particular and individual.

Memory is not history, even though memories may be among the evidence a historian examines in constructing a historical past.

Memoirs, as everyone knows, make bad history.

the issue in historical explanation is to explain the character and not the mere occurrence of events. A historical event is not an atomic, isolated, permanent thing but (as we have seen) an "identity" or "historical individual" constructed by the historian.

it is the historian's job to find coherence in the past, nothing in history can be regarded as accidental. For accident-mere chance or "fortune"-explains nothing, and a past composed of accidents is as unhistorical as a past of necessary consequences.

We are all descended from monsters.

The past is closed up inside its own depressing little museum of faded styles and codes and anticipations; you can't re-enter it

Sometimes these days I almost think I can do without the present. The past is enough for me, it's enough for my life. Does that sound insane?

we're wedged tight into the accident of our moment in history.

In order to erase his personal history the warrior must create around himself a fog in which nothing about him seems tangible. Only tangible people have personal history.

Concepts such as age, place of birth and parentage can only have meaning within the context of personal history.

WARRIORS MUST LISTEN TO THEIR HEART. IN ORDER TO DO SO YOU MUST FOLLOW YOUR FEELINGS – BUT THIS IS DIFFICULT TO DO IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR VIEW OF THE WORLD. ERASING PERSONAL HISTORY IS A POWERFUL MEANS OF ELIMINATING THE RESTRAINTS OF YOUR VIEW OF THE WORLD.

Once upon a time..They came from Europe, yielding swords, they robbed, raped, conquered Africa , and gave us The Ten Commandments.

We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.

It's a world with its own traditions and lore, some of which are hidden within pianos themselves.

Remember, too, that the trees for the wood that was used to build this piano were most likely planted in the late sixteenth century.

I saw a film today, oh boy, The English army had just won the war, A crowd of people turned away, But I just had to look, having read the book...

Books educate people and educated people ask awkward questions of those who govern them. The educated, in short, are considered ungovernable. Better to keep people ignorant of the past and to concentrate their minds on the utopia that lies ahead.

It seemed that our family had been on this land for thousands of years; that we had sprung from the earth, born of its flesh like a tree or a flower, deep-rooted, not by our feet, but by our hearts.