Quotes About History

Ah, the marvel of queens. Even in ancient times he had heard talk of queens protecting their kingdoms, while kings go forth to conquer new ones, of queens protecting their power, while kings seek more. And in modern times, he had heard tell of a great queen, Elizabeth of England, who had followed this very path, protecting her great kingdom and its far-flung colonies, but never initiating a war to gain increased power or land.

Call me Ramses the Damned. For that is the name I have given myself. But I was once Ramses the Great of Upper and Lower Egypt, slayer of the Hittites, father of many sons and daughters, who ruled Egypt for sixty-four years.

ancestor, and the combination was

From now on Anne saw herself as someone indelibly marked by suffering. Her letters to Sarah often ended with an allusion to her tragic history of bereavement, for she took to signing them your poor unfortunate faithful Morley.

So ended . . . a royal friendship which once could not be contained within the common bounds of love.

The two groupings soon acquired names, originally intended as insults. Those hostile to the Duke of York were known as "Whigs," short for "Whiggamore," a term formerly applied to extremist Presbyterian rebels in Scotland. Their more traditionalist opponents were dubbed "Tories," after the lawless Catholic bandits who rampaged in Ireland.

Didn't anyone stop to reflect that the so-called old people of today used to smoke pot, for heaven's sake, and wear bandannas tied around their heads and picket the White House? When Amanda chided her for saying that something was "cool" ("I hate it when the older generation tries to copy the younger," she had said), did she not realize that "cool" had been used in Abby's time, too, not to mention long before?

Past is past... no it's not! People are always fond of saying that, but what's past is never past; not entirely.

those who forget the past tend to regret the future

Oh, sounds were what brought the past alive most clearly!

Same for the photos on the facing page: two little girls crammed into an armchair with a puppy, and a baby whose vast bouffant christening gown seemed to be wearing him rather than the other way around. There were no captions. Once the subjects' identities must have seemed so obvious; it hadn't occurred to the album's creator that the time would come when no one alive remembered them.

The houses here had a distinctly Pennsylvanian air, Maggie thought. They were mostly tall stone rectangles, flat-faced, set close to the road, with a meager supply of narrow windows.

Didn't anyone stop to reflect that the so-called old people of today used to smoke pot, for heaven's sake, and wear bandannas tied around their heads and picket the White House?

the 1918 sinking of the Princess Sophia in Lynn Canal. 11. Federal Building – A few blocks south along Glacier Avenue, at the corner

when I hear people say "Six Flags," my mind fills in "Over Texas" and I have to resist the temptation to explain why "Six Flags." The six flags refer to the six flags of the countries that flew over Texas in history: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederate States of America.

Founder's Chic: Our Reverence for the Founding Fathers Has Gotten out of Hand, Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 2003.

History is not just about the things we like or the people we want to love and admire—a fantasy date with our favorite dead person.

Calling such people "mulattoes," from the Spanish word meaning "mule," insinuated that blacks and whites, though related, were close to being separate species, as a mule is the offspring of a horse and a donkey.

the past is never dead. It's not even past.

I've learned that history is the autobiography of the historian, that ignoring the past is the act of a fool, and that loyalty does not mean falling into line, but stepping out of it for the people you love.

I have since wondered, of course, how my life would have been different if I'd decided to stay home that morning. This is what's called the enigma of history, and it can drive you out of your mind if you let it.

There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been.

Those of us who read carried around with us like martyrs a secret knowledge, a secret joy and a secret hope: There is a life worth living where history is still taking place; there are ideas worth dying for, and circumstances where courage is still prized.

But there is no one but us. There never has been. There have been generations which remembered, and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole men and women who lived well for even one day. Yet some have imagined well, with honesty and art, the detail of such a life, and have described it with such grace, that we mistake vision for history, dream for description, and fancy that life has devolved.