Quotes About History

You killed more people than anybody in history. Be the best at whatever you do, that's what my mother always told me.

The future is a hundred thousand threads, but the past is a fabric that can never be rewoven.

We need a Napoleon. An Alexander. Except that Napoleon lost in the end, and Alexander flamed out and died young. We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself a dictator, and died for it.

The society whose citizens are willing to stand and fight is the one with the best chance of surviving long enough for history to even notice.

Oh, Val, said Father. All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier. No greatness, then. Val, said Mother, goodness trumps greatness any day. Not in the history books, said Valentine. Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they? said Father.

I stole their future from them; I can only being to repay by seeing what I can learn from their past.

For it is in the millions of small melodies that the truth of history is always found, for history only matters because of the effects we see or imagine in the lives of the ordinary people who are caught up in, or give shape to, the great events.

History is an omlette. THe eggs are already broken.

But shouldn't they still act like children? They aren't normal. They act like--history. Napoleon and Wellington. Caesar and Brutus.

As history shows us, when colonization is voluntary, people will self-select better than any testing system. It's like those foolish attempts to control immigration to American based on the traits that were deemed desirable, when in fact the only trait that defines Americans historically is "descended from somebody willing to give up everything to live there." Willingness is the single most important test.

Val, said Mother, goodness trumps greatness any day. Not in the history books, said Valentine. Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they? said Father.

The commercial work of today is the classics of tomorrow.

it seemed a part of her life, to step from the ancient to the modern, back and forth. She felt rather sorry for those who knew only one and not the other. It was better, she thought, to be able to select from the whole menu of human achievements than to be bound within one narrow range.

History's got no bows on it, only frayed ends of ribbons and knots that can't be untied.

This is all so silly,' said Diko. 'Who cares about what's real and what isn't real? [...] And as for our own history, the parts that will be lost, who cares if a mathematician calls us dirty names like unreal? They say such slanders about the square root of minus two as well.

Why should I worry about uncreating so much of human history? Why should I care that it will be worse than forgotten, that it will be unknown? Why should that seem to be a crime, when all of human history is an eyeblink compared to the billions of years the stars have shone?

you might change the props and the actors, the play of human history is always the same

We do what we must to earn our place in the community, but we live for the hours at home. For each other, for the children. It will never get me written up in the history books.

Oh, Val," said Father. "All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier." "No greatness, then." "Val," said Mother, "goodness trumps greatness any day." "Not in the history books," said Valentine. "Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?" said Father.

Europe was already Europe.

I stole their future from them; I can only begin to repay by seeing what I can learn from their past.

The prospect of sharing the rest of their lives held no dread for them. . . every word and movement between them carried their history and their future like background movement, shaping each moment even when they weren't aware of it.

Val," said Mother, "goodness trumps greatness any day." "Not in the history books," said Valentine. "Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?" said Father.

No greatness, then.' 'Val,' said Mother, 'goodness trumps greatness any day.' 'Not in the history books,' said Valentine. 'Then the wrong people are writing history, aren't they?' said Father.