Quotes About History

Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Second, they say it has been discovered before. Last, they say they always believed it.

The Chinese expected the white man to pay more for his burden because the British, the Pablo Escobar of imperialists, had forced them to buy opium from India in 1850 and had stolen Hong Kong.

the Chinese Communist Party played only a minor role in battling the Japanese. It was the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] that bore the brunt of the heavy fighting and was significantly weakened in the process. Without the Japanese invasion, it seems improbable that the CCP could have won the "Nationalist-Communist" Civil War in 1950. But historical memory is rarely gracious, self-deprecating, or forgiving, especially in a police state.) The

Myths arise from actual events, remarkable events that get talked about precisely because they are remarkable and which then get embellished in the retelling.

location of the royal prison have existed for centuries:

Dragons in History by Eleanor Lock (Border Press, London, 1999)

In fact, the name 'rook' derives from ruhk, the Persian word for chariot. Pawns were footsoldiers, bishops were elephants, knights were mounted cavalry, and speeding along at the edges of the board were the swift and deadly chariots.

In the 19th century, Europe invaded and colonised Africa. In the 21st century, Africa invades and colonises Europe.

Napoleon was probably the equal at least of Washington in intellect, his superior in education. Both of them were successful in serving the state.

The history of ideas matters because ideas make actors out of human beings, and they make actors out of us precisely insofar as they occupy this open, uncontrollable, and inherently unlimited universe of explanations, not the stultifying dogma of a supposed conceptual scheme, not the inert, always epiphenomenal utterances we call doctrines or first principles.

There's more that's happened than what's in your memory.

A house with nothing old in it seems - unseasoned.

History is a more or less bunk, the only history that is worth a damn is what we make today.

These Big Brewers scorned honest beer in favor of watery swill brewed from cheap corn and rice. The Big Brewers added insult to injury by using crass commercials, linked mostly to professional sporting events, to sell their foul brew to working-class people. By the 1970s, only a handful of brewers remained and American beer was a thin, yellow concoction with no flavor and even less body.

Peoples bear the weight of curses longer than the princes who incur them.

History's tragedies reveal great men: but those tragedies are provoked by the mediocre.

Each one of us has his shining hour in the events of his century. On one occasion it may be Monseigneur of Kent, on another Monseigneur of Lancaster, some other on a previous occasion and yet another on a later, whom the event illumines because of the decisive part he plays in it. Thus is made the history of the world.

There are no advantageous defeats, but there can be disastrous victories. Few days in France's history have cost her so dear as Cassel, for it gave currency to a number of false ideas, such as that the new King was invincible, and that foot-soldiers were worthless in war. The defeat of Crécy, twenty years later, was the consequence of this illusion.

In every period, and in every country, there have always been two parties: the reactionary and the progressive.

The shamrock on an older shore Sprang from a rich and sacred soil Where saint and hero lived of yore, And where their sons in sorrow toil.

In each epoch memory reconstructs an image of the past that is in accord with the predominant thoughts of the society.

Mais nous croyons que l'esprit reconstruit ses souvenirs sous la pression de la société. . . que celle-ci le détermine à transfigurer ainsi le passé . . // But we believe that the mind reconstructs its memories under the pressure of society. . . that this causes the mind to transfigure the past . . .

tout semble indiquer qu'il [le passé] ne se conserve pas, mais qu'on le reconstruit en partant du présent.

Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past.