Quotes About History

The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man.

History is the chronicle of divorces between creed and deed.

A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.

The eyes of faith are not always bright. At times they can see only dim shadows, like rough shapes reflected in a worn and dusty mirror. Yet even then, especially then, the faithful are called to trust in the promises of old and to believe that the time and place of their birth are no accident. For faith sees not only that history is meaningful, that it is going someplace, but also understands its own limited role within that history.

We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather!

Well, let me tell you something, Caveman. You are here on account of one person. If it wasn't for that person, you wouldn't be here digging holes in the hot sun. You know who that person is?" "My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

In writing the history of a life I believe absolutely that the reader cannot understand the character and deeds of the subject unless he is given a basic understanding of that person's sexual loves and hates and conflicts. It is the only way the reader can make sense out of innumerable apparently senseless actions.

What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history.

There is only One Intelligence,and this Intelligence has a splendid track record in the history of our solar system, guiding each of the planets for millions of years along pathways that are orderly and harmonious. I willingly accept this Intelligence as my partner in business.

Simon hated her for that. Perhaps it was automatic. Her appearance alone made her different from him, and human beings had always feared and hated anyone who was different. Two thousand years of history saw it being repeated over and over, the perpetual struggle of one race, or tribe, or creed, against another... each one thinking they were right, superior, morally justified, or chosen by God. Simon saw himself as normal, Laura as abnormal.

Zi zhi tong jian (Comprehensive mirror for aid in governance), the famous annalistic history on the period written between 1067 and 1084 A.D.,

Yeah, I thought to myself, like LSD, a black lover is the thing this year. I had seen the white girls in the Village and at off-Broadway theaters clutching their black men tightly while I, manless, looked on with bitterness. I often vowed I would find me an ofay in self-defense, but I could never bring myself to condone the wholesale rape of my slave ancestors by letting a white man touch me.

The Germans have eaten the Gypsies of Poland for breakfast, child, and then they ate the Jews for lunch, but soon it will be supper." "What will they eat then?" "All the rest of the Poles.

We are a mirror of our times.

while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

Books were everywhere in their large apartment. Histories, biographies, novels, studies on Quebec antiques, poetry. Placed in orderly bookcases. Just about every table had at least one book on it, and oftern several magazines. And the weekend newspapers were scattered on the coffee table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. If a visitor was the observant type, and made it further into the apartment to Gamache's study, he might see the story the books in there told.

Not everything buried is actually dead. For many, the past is alive.

And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

Where once his grandparents put up crucifixes and images of the benediction on their walls, he and Reine-Marie put up books on theirs. History books. Reference books. Biographies. Fiction, nonfiction. Stories lined the walls and both insulated them from the outside world and connected them to it.

history wasn't just written by the victors. First it had to be erased and rewritten. Replacing troublesome truth with self-serving myth.

A lot of what we know to be history isn't…it serves a purpose. Events are exaggerated, heroes fabricated, goals are rewritten to appear more noble than they actually were. All to manipulate public opinion, to manufacture a common purpose or enemy. And the cornerstone of a really great movement? A powerful symbol. Take away or tarnish that and everything starts to crumble, everything's questioned.

Look at Nuremberg. Why did the Holocaust happen?" "Because deluded, power-crazy leaders needed a common enemy," said Clara. "No," said Myrna. "It happened because no one stopped them. Not enough people stood up soon enough.

Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge. It was an old library, filled with old books and dusty old thoughts.