Quotes About History

Bill Clinton was one of the greatest presidents that we've seen. He was involved in the peace process in the very beginning, and he not only showed himself to be knowledgeable about Irish history and Irish-British relationships, but also he was very sympathetic to the idea of resolving conflict.

I belong to a nation which over the past centuries has experienced many hardships and reverses. The world reacted with silence or with mere sympathy when Polish frontiers were crossed by invading armies and the sovereign state had to succumb to brutal force.

The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies.

I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.

For reasons historic, aesthetic, and political, we Jews are most attuned to the anti-Semitism of the far Right - and we find the most sympathy among our progressive allies when these are our attackers.

It would be easy to assume that the open letter is a symptom of the Internet age. Such is not the case. In 1774, Benjamin Franklin wrote an open letter to the prime minister of Great Britain, Lord North - a satirical call for the imposition of martial law in the colonies.

The majority of Jews are secular... the Nazis never checked if anyone was going to the synagogue or eating kosher.

I am crumbling in sync with old Hackney.

Back in the early '40s, they used to call Down syndrome infants and babies 'mongoloids.' It's very hard for parents.

My name is synonymous with corsets and ringlets.

As historians write more and more histories, it's a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that other historians read their histories and then make synthesis, and certain things just get forgotten and left out and neglected.

In 1932, the predecessor organization, the CDC, took 299 black sharecroppers from the South who had syphilis. They offered them free healthcare, hot lunches, and free burial. They said you can only come to us for healthcare. These were men who were sharecroppers, and they had syphilis. They were never told they had syphilis.

There are some cities that I did take time out to study, 'cause I love history and one of them was Boston, and of course Rome and all of those places like that. But, in Syracuse or Rochester, or any of those places, no.

Under Obama's intentional neglect, the most barbaric force in modern history - the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) - has taken form as a monstrous hoard and, like a hurricane, gathered power.

Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East.

I do know that Syria never will recognize Lebanon as an independent country, and the declaration of independence of Lebanon took place in 1943. Syria never - Syria never have recognized Lebanon. They regard Lebanon as part of Syria.

Even when you just hear the word 'Syria,' it packs a lot of political connotations.

I'm from Lebanon, and I've been exposed a lot to Syria.

'Slavery by Another Name' is an important book that I think all Americans should read, about how, following the end of slavery, a new system of racial and social control was born, known as 'convict leasing.'

It was a lack of system that made the '30s Depression as inevitable as all others previously suffered.

We have a lot to learn from the Tudor education system. It had diversity, placed rigorous demands on its students, and encouraged high achievement.

The slavery of Negroes in the South was not usually a deliberately cruel and oppressive system. It did not mean systematic starvation or murder.

Historical costumes from the 18th and 19th centuries look so complicated, but when you see the patterns, it's very systematic. I've always been impressed by how the patterns economize the fabric.

Black people are experiencing a systemic disadvantage, and it goes back to slavery, which was not that long ago.