Quotes About History

He had made clear that it would be foolish to require for each historical question the presence of a unique type of document with a specific sort of use.

No single piece of evidence can "prove" the existence of any historical event.

In the 200,000 years of the species Homo sapiens, patriarchy accounts for less than 5% of our evolutionary history. If we consider the 2.5 million years of the Homo genus, our direct ancestors, patriarchy is less than 0.5% of our history.

If by following Pannenberg we believe that the eschaton, as "now" and "future," has already appeared proleptically in the events of Easter while yet remaining still to come, we might expect that the universe already has a more complex topology than that of ordinary spacetime in which simple worldlines trace out the history of particles. We might even expect to find hints of this more complex topology prefigured within the theories of physics and cosmology.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington party a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon-See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Evil.

Most of the Streltsy were simple Russians, living by the old ways, revering both tsar and patriarch, hating innovation and opposing reforms.

Voltaire had exercised the greatest intellectual influence on Catherine, and Diderot was the only one of the major philosophes she actually met, but it was in Friedrich Melchoir Grimm that the empress found a lifelong friend.

Thousands of people, either in person or in writing, told me that reading my book made a difference in their lives. Some said that it led to an interest in Russia that they now manifest at many levels of scholarship and education. A large number tell me that Nicholas and Alexandra introduced them to history in general and that they now find interest in many areas of the human past.

In 1900, sending a contingent of German troops to China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, he shouted to the departing soldiers, "There will be no quarter, no prisoners will be taken! As a thousand years ago, the Huns under King Attila gained for themselves a name which still stands for terror in tradition and story, so may the name of German be impressed by you for a thousand years on China.

I don't want the books [...] to be too far away; they, also, have become friends. I even feel this way about books I don't own. In libraries, I find myself visiting the books I used before. I regard those rows of memoirs and letters as voices from the past, bound into books, and I like to make sure they are all there, alive and well. If they have collected dust, I take out the small towel I carry in my briefcase and wipe them off. -from 2012 NYT Book Review Essay

Russia, after all, has existed for a thousand years; the Soviet era lasted only seventy-four. The Romanov dynasty, which included such towering figures as Peter and Catherine the Great, had ruled for more than three centuries. It came to an end in brutal murders in a Siberian cellar, but many Russians never knew this had happened. Or how. Or why.

General History of Germany

She was fourteen and he was thirty-two, and this was the first and only meeting of these two remarkable monarchs. Both would eventually be accorded the title "the Great." And between them, for decades, they would dominate the history of central and eastern Europe.

It is one of the supreme ironies of history that the blessed birth of an only son should have proved the mortal blow. Even as the saluting cannons boomed and the flags waved, Fate had prepared a terrible story. Along with the lost battles and sunken ships, the bombs, the revolutionaries and their plots, the strikes and revolts, Imperial Russia was toppled by a tiny defect in the body of a little boy.

She (historian Barbara Tuchman) draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human ability as amused and saddened by human folly.

For twenty years, Peter had been playing with soldiers; first toys, then boys, then grown men. His games had grown from drills involving a few hundred idle stable boys and falconers to 30,000 men involved in the assault and defense of the river fort of Pressburg. Now, seeking the excitement of real combat, he looked for a fortress to besiege, and Azov, isolated at the bottom of the Ukrainian steppe, suited admirably.

Peter returned to Russia determined to remold his country along Western lines. The old Muscovite state, isolated and introverted for centuries, would reach out to Europe and open itself to Europe. In a sense, the flow of effect was circular: the West affected Peter, the Tsar had a powerful impact upon Russia, and Russia, modernized and emergent, had a new and greater influence on Europe. For all three, therefore—Peter, Russia and Europe—the Great Embassy was a turning point.

Without Rasputin, there could have been no Lenin." ALEXANDER KERENSKY

is as old as man. It has come down through the centuries, misted in legend, shrouded with the dark dread of a hereditary curse. In the Egypt of the Pharaohs, a woman was forbidden to bear further children if her firstborn son bled to death from a minor wound. The ancient Talmud barred circumcision in a family if two successive male children had suffered fatal hemorrhages.

History had not led to the triumph of liberalism; it had led to Hitler and Stalin.

Many were surprised at the British vote to leave the European Union, but from a historical perspective there was nothing unusual about the English seeking distance from the continent.

THERE WAS NOTHING INEVITABLE about this turn of events. No divine providence or progressive teleology, no unfolding Hegelian dialectic required that liberalism triumph after World War II.

newspapers do provide invaluable historical evidence not only of forgotten events but also of the way things looked before later events made them look different. And that is as much a part of history as the way things actually were.