Quotes About History

Civilization has been an intermittent phenomenon; to this truth we have allowed ourselves to be blinded by the insolence of material success.

Ground-elder was introduced to Britain by the Romans for the commendable purpose of relieving gout, doubling as a pot-herb into the bargain. But 2,000 years and several medical revolutions later, it's become the most obstinate and detested weed in the nation's flowerbeds.

Weeds made the first vegetables, the first home medicines, the first dyes.

The remains of the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

In the history of mankind, the fine art of killing one another in a civilized and uniformed manner has been elusive.

It was the old tale retold, that to the life of every man there is a background

How long did it take for a past to die?

The vampire was real. It was only that his true story had never been told.

Mubei: Zhongguo Liushi Niandai Da Jihuang Jishi [Tombstone: A Record of the Great Chinese Famine of the 60s], Cosmos Books, Hong Kong, 2008.

Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time.

History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man.

Great Carthage drove three wars. After the first one it was still powerful. After the second one it was still inhabitable. After the third one it was no longer possible to find her.

Because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and Tranquillity to Earth. For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. One in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.

My own view is that taping of conversations for historical purposes was a bad decision on the part of all the presidents. I don't think Kennedy should have done it. I don't think Johnson should have done it, and I don't think we should have done it.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can't get out.

This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation. (Saluting crew of the Apollo 11)

It would be revealed years later that the language had been lifted almost verbatim from an ad that had appeared in the New York Times and other papers over the names of isolationist congressmen, written and paid for by Nazi agents.

Llegué con cincuenta años de adelanto», dice Ben Johnson con un tono tan satisfecho como triste. «Yo era capaz de hacer lo mismo que hace hoy en día Usain Bolt. La velocidad a la que él es capaz de correr en estas pistas tan rápidas de hoy en día es la misma a la que podría haber corrido yo». Y lo repite, «Llegué con cincuenta años de adelanto. ¡Cincuenta años!». Lanza una carcajada, la misma que lanzaría ante una broma pesada.

I'm not a bad driver. And I never will be because I took lessons when I was quite a boy. I never had to pass a test because there wasn't such a thing when I first started driving a motor car. So I didn't have to pass one.

the twentieth century.

No president in history has been more vilified or was more vilivied during the time he was President than Lincoln. Those who knew him, his secretaries, have written that he was deeply hurt by what was said about him and drawn about him, but on the other hand, Lincoln had the great strength of character never to display it, always able to stand tall and strong and firm no matter how harsh or unfair the criticism might be. These elements of greatness, of course, inspire us all today.

There's no excuse for a dull book, a dull museum, or a dull speech. Especially when dealing with history—the most fascinating subject I know.

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

Normandy operations, typified by Quesada's armored column cover and Broadhurst's contact cars, thus fulfilled a concept born a quarter-century earlier, amid the mud of Flanders: the notion of the airplane as a partner of the tank, as a "counter antitank" weapon. In that war, then-Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, Great Britain's greatest armor advocate, had recognized that cooperation between air and armor forces was "of incalculable importance.