Quotes About History

But without Rousseau's pessimistic approach to history and without his doctrine of the depravity of the present, the nineteenth-century novel of disillusionment is just as inconceivable as the conception of tragedy held by Schiller, Kleist, and Hebbel.

All rights, all power, all ability, are suddenly expressed in terms of money. In order to be understood, everything has to be reduced to this common denominator. From this point of view, the whole previous history of capitalism seems no more than a mere prelude.

Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.

History teaches us that when a barbarian race confronts a sleeping culture, the barbarian always wins.

On the Old Course at St. Andrews: This is the origin of the game, golf in its purest form, and it's still played that way on a course seemingly untouched by time. Every time I play here, it reminds me that this is still a game

Well, I think that California has had a history of always spending more money than it takes in.

History is a vision of God's creation on the move.

La storia che raccontiamo è l'eterna storia dell'amore nell'eterno paese della poesia; non mettiamo date all'eternità.

The eyes of the Armenians speak long before the lips move and long after they cease to.

If President Nixon's secretary, Rosemary Woods, had been Moses' secretary, there would only be eight commandments.

A photograph is a biography of a moment.

I know this is insane, but I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through! I guess it's some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did.

I'm not talking about YOUR book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What's the point? People haven't changed... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.

The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future.

You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.

[History is] petrified imagination.

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

[History] is fallible as every man is fallible. But it is likewise trustworthy, as a man is trustworthy who has looked into himself and come to know how blended are dust and fire in the innermost recesses of the human heart.

For me, the last part is key to national unity: gratitude based on a recognition that we need others, even—perhaps especially—those with whom we disagree. Why? Because we are blessed to live in the greatest, freest country in the history of the world—a place where, when you have a difference of opinion, nobody's going to knock on your door and haul you off to a forced-labor camp. We take this for granted, but in the scope of history, it is truly a miracle.

it was the worldwide spread of American-style free enterprise that saved billions from poverty by giving them their first opportunity to rise in history. Truly, this is America's gift to the world. Conservatives can and must champion this truth without apology or compromise. For the sake of all people, our end goal must be to make free enterprise as universally accepted and nonpartisan as civil rights are today.

In his farewell address, George Washington famously warned against "the baneful effects" of political enmity.41

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion.