Quotes About History

There are some examples of medieval kings who were terrible human beings but were nevertheless good kings.

I almost stand in awe when I think of Joseph Smith. The angel appeared to him in 1823 - he said to this simple little boy, 'Your name should be known for good and evil throughout the entire world.'

I think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s.

We've gotten rid of (Saddam Hussein), and I suppose that's a good thing.

You know, it shows how old I am. I can remember the good old days when the president picked the Supreme Court justices instead of the other way around.

Steven Spielberg is going to release a biopic about Abraham Lincoln next year. Right, that's a good way to honor Lincoln – by sending people to the theater.

Historic in a good sense, not historic in a sense of 'so we dropped bombs on everyone.

The Irish didn't read and write for a couple of thousand years, and I think we developed good memories and recall. We have a sense of the revelatory detail. I look for them.

I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again.

America is a great country, and we've done a lot of good in the world. But we are a collection of people, not saints. We have our own sins to atone for.

I'm very good at the past. It's the present I can't understand.

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia - that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone.

Churchill was a good writer but a bad historian.

History is fickle. We know that. The good and bad come around and go around, and go around again. There are recessions and depressions and economic boom and bust.

A lot of good things start in Virginia; a lot of good things have started in Virginia. We're no strangers to firsts.

It is one proof of a good education and of true refinement of feeling, to respect antiquity.

If it weren't for the Japanese and the Germans, we wouldn't have any good war movies.

First of all, Bill Clinton was an extremely good president and more importantly, the country was in a very good position when he actually walked away.

The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behavior.

Yet the age was not so utterly destitute of virtues but that it produced some good examples. [Lat., Non tamen adeo virtutum sterile seculum, ut non et bona exempla prodiderit.]

If that was good enough for George Washington, it's good enough for me.

Behind every good woman lies a trail of men.

Of course killing people is 'wrong', but I think history shows that sometimes it serves the greater good.

We need a revolution every 200 years, because all governments become stale and corrupt after 200 years.