Quotes About History

library catalogs are a tangible example of humanity's effort to establish and preserve the possibility of order.

the Gordian knot that ties the present and future to the past." In Greek mythology, an oracle claimed that whoever was able to untie an intricate knot tied by King Gordius would become the next ruler of Asia. Alexander the Great, unable to untie the knot, became impatient and swiftly cut it with his sword. The idiom is now meant to express an intractable problem solved with quick, resolute action.

Five thousand dollars was tacked on to the bill "for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress and such a catalogue as shall be furnished by a joint committee of both houses of Congress to be appointed for that purpose." With that, the Library of Congress was established.

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

A Christ upon paper, though it were the sacred pages of the Gospel, would have been as powerless to save Christendom as a Christ in fresco; not less feeble than the Countenance which, in the last stages of its decay, may be traced on the wall of the Refectory at Milan. A living Christ is the key to the phenomenon of Christian history.

Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history.

The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

He agreed with Francis Bacon: Old friends to trust, old wood to burn, old authors to read.

We, the Hawaiian people, who are born from the union of Papahanaumoku and Wakea, earth mother and sky father, and who have lived in these islands for over 100 generations, will always have the moral right to the lands of Hawai'i now and forever, no matter what any court says.

Concrete arteries brought prosperity, like the historical iron horses galloping from coast to coast over the graves of the indigenous, but they were also digestive pathways, and a whole lot of shit ran off them.

There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present.

Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.

Glimpses of how it really was before us are rare, if not impossible.

La cucina bears the scents of its past, and every event in its history is recorded with an olfactory memorandum. Here vanilla, coffee, nutmeg, and confidences; there the milky-sweet smell of babies, old leather, sheep's cheese, and violets. In the corner by the larder hangs the stale tobacco smell of old age and death, while the salty scent of lust and satiation clings to the air by the cellar steps along with the aroma of soap, garlic, beeswax, lavender, jealousy, and disappointment.

There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?

Holocaust? Ninety million Indians? Only four million left? They all have casinos -- what's to complain about?

That perfect liberty they sigh for -- the liberty of making slaves of other people -- Jefferson never thought of, their own fathers never thought of, they never thought of themselves, a year ago. How fortunate for them they did not sooner become sensible of their great misery!

All the strange, checkered past seems to crowd upon my mind.

Henry Clay is dead. His long and eventful life is closed. Our country is prosperous and powerful; but could it have been quite all it has been, and is, and is to be, without Henry Clay? Such a man the times have demanded, and such in the providence of God was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that in future national emergencies He will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.

Now, at this day in the history of the world we can no more foretell where the end of this slavery agitation will be than we can see the end of the world itself.

discoveries: a burial pit in Wales that contained the remains of what most scholars agreed was the first-century English queen Boadicea. She had been found buried in an ancient war chariot, surrounded by weapons, golden armbands, and other trinkets.

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.

we still expect a biography to give an account of a person's life, and times too.

Linda Buckley-Archer