Quotes About History

In the 1930s, photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange produced images of sharecroppers and Okies, which drew attention both to the conditions in which these unfortunates found themselves and to their heroic fortitude.

Madame Walker selected Indianapolis as the headquarters for her growing business more than a century ago in 1910 because of its central location and thriving black business community.

Many people have told me that once they learn of Madam Walker's accomplishments they are surprised, even embarrassed, that they have never heard of her. But they shouldn't be. Her extraordinary story was simply omitted from the history books.

Because I'm a walker, natural history is my subject; I've always been obsessed with landscape, and I have an elegiac tone in most of my books.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

I have often called attention to the fact that walking through the streets in the Middle Ages was a different experience from nowadays. Right and left, there were house facades that were built out of what the soul felt and thought. Every key, every lock, carried the imprint of the person who had made it.

It sounds stupid, but there's nothing like walking down the street and seeing a building that's older than 100 years old. I think London - not to sound pretentious - like New York, it's a big melting pot for all things and it's just got this energy that you can't find anywhere else.

I can remember walking on the moon.

Meditation while walking has a long, noble history in ancient spiritual disciplines.

In New York, I'm around a lot of the reasons I started playing music in the first place. I live right behind Matt Umanov Guitars. I live on the street that Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan were walking down on the album cover. I recognize the history.

Some of our greatest historical and artistic treasures we place in museums; others, we take for walks.

Changes in the traditional way of building are only permitted if they are an improvement. Otherwise stay with what is traditional, for truth, even if it be hundreds of years old has a stronger inner bond with us than the lie that walks by our side.

I was always pretty interested in my history. Not just the history of the Caribbean, the history of my people, but all walks of life.

Venice is truly magical. The Devon-Dorset coast in England is so beautiful, and its sandstone cliffs are full of fossils, which can make for some very exciting walks. And I love Halifax, a great place with all the modern things you could want, plus a wonderful sense of history, and, of course, the sea.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

After Hiroshima was bombed, I saw a photograph of the side of a house with the shadows of the people who had lived there burned into the wall from the intensity of the bomb. The people were gone, but their shadows remained.

My dad was a journalist. He was in Rwanda right after the genocide. In Berlin when the wall came down. He was always disappearing and coming back with amazing stories. So telling stories for a living made sense to me.

The fall of the Berlin Wall makes for nice pictures. But it all started in the shipyards.

When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field.

George Bush taking credit for the wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sun rising.

I've been truly blessed. I've been a fly on the wall of history. I've been just so many lucky places just by chance and serendipity, and obviously a huge portion of that serendipity had to do with my relationship with the real president, Ronald Reagan.

I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours.

The world has fundamentally changed. It fundamentally changed when the Berlin Wall came down and the 'evil empire' ceased to exist. We are engaged around the world whether we like it or not.

I collect traditional Aubusson tapestries that you can hang on a wall. The last lot I bought were from an antiques fair in London.