Quotes About History

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

The Age of Chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.

As he waved at grizzled old Southerners, and they in turn waved the Stars and Stripes back at him, Roosevelt reflected that only thirty-three years before these men had been enemies of the Union.44 It took war to heal the scars of war; attack upon a foreign power to bring unity at home. But what future war would heal the scars of this one?

confidently, "President

At my age (seventy-eight), I realize that everyone, or almost everyone except Hitler, will be forgotten from this period; if a writer can shore up an eroding coastline for a decade or two, that's the only "immortality" we'll ever know on this dying planet.

America was the attic of French culture.

had taken place just before Grant's visit, and Wilhelm was unable to receive him. "Here is an old man," says Bismarck, — "one of the kindest old gentlemen in the world — and yet they must try and shoot him!

so many that had died on the scaffold and many more to die including, though she did not know it then, her own son.

Dilly, do not ever forget your own people." My brother came with me to wait for the mail car. He took off his brown scapulars and gave them to me, it being his way of saying goodbye. "In your letters, better not mention politics," he said. He had a secret life from us, he was a Croppy Boy, so many young men were, but dared not speak of it for fear of informers.

You became the youngest person ever to win the Pritzker Prize, architecture's version of the Nobel.

History is past politics and politics present history.

The cult of the individual that dominates modern minds, the ideology of the "I," prevents most of us from seeing ourselves as products of the chronicle and choices of our predecessors

Marriage between cousins was common in the planter families—rather, it was expected.

The names of families are the front doors of history.

Family memory flows more completely through women. It is the women who learn much of the lore and who convey it to the young. Men forget the past in all its fleshiness and select which parts best fit into their lives.

History is indeed little more than the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war;

During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. 

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption, which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

Once the monarchy was abolished, a decree was passed that there would be no more kings in Rome.

In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.

so intimate is the connexion between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people.

HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon