Quotes About History

Well, some people say I'm pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?

Ich finde es einen wunderschönen Gedanken, dass etwas, das ein Mensch vor über hundert Jahren niedergeschrieben hat, noch immer da ist. Der Mensch selbst ist schon lange verschwunden, und vielleicht sogar schon vergessen, aber seine Gedanken sind immer noch da. Bücher sind Boten aus der Vergangenheit, weißt du? Botschaften aus der Vergangenheit für die Menschen der Zukunft. Wie kleine Zeitmaschinen.

God has been using creative people throughout history to bring glory and honor to His name.

[The Civil War] created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union; it was the rebirth of the Union.

It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.

The flag of the United States has not been created by rhetorical sentences in declarations of independence and in bills of rights. It has been created by the experience of a great people, and nothing is written upon it that has not been written by their life. It is the embodiment, not of a sentiment, but of a history.

I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it.

A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.

We forget that there is much more patriotism in having the audacity to differ from the majority than in running before the crowd; we forget that in the resistance of the minority some of the biggest things in our own history have been accomplished, and the man who looks on the Stars and Stripes and doesn't hold a right to say nay to his neighbor, even if the neighbor is of the larger party, has forgotten the history of his country.

Movies are] like writing history with lightning.

He is not a true man of the world who knows only the present fashions of it.

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.

History is the same thing over and over again.

The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other.

Dovevano cambiare molte cose perché il passato avesse un futuro.

it ain't as hard as picking cotton

My words are not that powerful. I started saying in 1985 I don't think we should have a music talking about ni**ers and b*tches and h*es. It had no impact. I've said it. I've repeated it. I still repeat it. To me, that's more damaging than a statue of Robert E. Lee.

Rap Is More Damaging Than Confederate Statues

Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.

So we are all black people, so-called Negroes, second-class citizens, ex-slaves. You are nothing but an ex-slave. You don't like to be told that. But what else are you? You are ex-slaves. You didn't come here on the Mayflower. You came here on a slave ship -- in chains, like a horse, or a cow, or a chicken. And you were brought here by the people who came here on the Mayflower. You were brought here by the so-called Pilgrims, or Founding Fathers. They were the ones who brought you here.

X is not my real name, but if you study history you'll find why no black man in the western hemisphere knows his real name. Some of his ancestors kidnapped our ancestors from Africa, and took us into the western hemisphere and sold us there. And our names were stripped from us and so today we don't know who we really are. I am one of those who admit it and so I just put X up there to keep from wearing his name.