Quotes About History

England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.

The historian records, but the novelist creates.

And in time there will come a generation that has got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation seraphically free from taint of personality, which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine.

Not out of them are the shows of history erected: the world would be a grey, bloodless place were it composed entirely of Miss Schlegels. But the world being what it is, perhaps they shine out in it like stars.

She lowered her eyes a moment to the black abyss of the past.

Every barbarian must give the Acropolis its chance once.

Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were stunted, its castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare between the Anglo-Saxon and the Kelt, between things as they are and as they ought to be.

If Wilcoxes hadn't worked and died in England for thousands of years, you and I couldn't sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even. Just savagery. No--perhaps not even that. Without their spirit life might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it.

Es läuft also darauf hinaus. Es hat immer Leute wie mich gegeben, und es wird sie weiterhin geben und meistens sind sie verfolgt worden.

i never knew anyone so relentless to his ancestors - you make up for your soapiness toward the living

At Philippi, Bunny, where I said I'd see him. What a rabbit you are at a quotation! "'And I think that the field of Philippi Was where Cæsar came to an end; But who gave old Brutus the tip, I Can't comprehend!' "You may have forgotten your Shakespeare, Bunny, but you ought to remember that.

Mr. Churchill is proud of Britain's stand alone, after France had fallen and before America entered the War.

For townsmen and countrymen alike, the rhythms of the liturgy on the eve of the Reformation remained the rhythms of life itself.

I knew I could not maintain that leadership in open struggle against Moscow influence. Only two Communist leaders in history ever succeeded in doing this - Tito and Mao Tse-tung.

No one can really know the life of his own day, let alone that of times long past. Always the historian sees as in a mirror darkly, the reds and the golds rendered drab by the shadows of time.

recent scientific papers suggest that Egypt's great pyramids might be made not of carved blocks of stone, as long thought, but of limestone-rich concrete cast in place. [back]

We may not know the whole story in our lifetime. (On assassination of President John F Kennedy(

The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.

History is principally the inaccurate narration of events which ought not to have happened.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be. . .and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, SEE, this is new It hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things.

Geography means destiny." – Ibn Khaldun

He gave them something solid to hate, and they gave him their votes. And once he started speaking in the name of we – as has happened many times over the course of history – they were ready to sacrifice themselves. As Americans know very well from their own constitution, the words 'We, the people' can build a new country and bring empires to their knees.

Most of the Founders and Framers were Deists. Deism is a religion that believes in a God who really doesn't give a shit.

Mormonism's uniqueness is in the fact that it was the first really successful attempt to pass paganism off as Christianity;