Quotes About History

Native Americans had only stone and wooden weapons and no animals that could be ridden. Those military advantages repeatedly enabled troops of a few dozen mounted Spaniards to defeat Indian armies numbering in the thousands.

Growing up during the Cold War, I remember the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear war. In primary school we were taught to 'duck-and-cover' for protection. But even as children hiding under wooden desks, we recognized the inadequacies of this strategy.

Looking back, in comparison, there wasn't that much that you could do with a wooden racket. In my day, the matches were certainly much less demanding physically.

Tiger Woods experienced perhaps the greatest fall from grace of any celebrity in American history.

A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

There have always been hermits: people who want to get away from other humans. Literally, some of the first extant books and poems found in Mesopotamia and China mention people living alone in the woods. It's this primal fascination that exists across all cultures and all times.

My children, as long as you live, the shadow of the Hiss Case will brush you. In every pair of eyes that rests on you, you will see pass, like a cloud passing behind a woods in winter, the memory of your father - dissembled in friendly eyes, lurking in unfriendly eyes.

If you're going to call a book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History,' readers will expect some serious carrying on about race, and Thomas Woods Jr. does not disappoint.

Beaumont-Hamel sits within a thousand acres of French agriculture. The trenches are under this blanket of grass. In the 1920s, a park was established here and trees from Newfoundland imported to encircle the battlefield so you get the feeling of being within a copse of woods.

As a kid, picturing people who grew up in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I walking around in hose and latched shoes in the woods behind my house was an interesting atmospheric thing for me.

I grew up in New England, and the woods behind my house seemed haunted by New England's past.

Of all the '60s - there was Elvis, there was the Beatles, there was the British invasion, Jimmy Hendrix, and Woodstock - the No. 1 record was 'The Twist.'

People say Altamont was the 'end of the '60s.' It was unfortunate, but at the time we didn't think of it as signaling anything. The fact that nobody got killed at Woodstock is amazing because that was half a million people. We only had 300,000 at Altamont.

Describing Woodstock as the 'big bang,' I think that's a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn't how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played.

I was at Woodstock. In the mud.

Though it's frequently portrayed as this crazy, unbridled festival of rain-soaked, stoned hippies dancing in the mud, Woodstock was obviously much more than that - or we wouldn't still be talking about it in 2009. People of all ages and colors came together in the fields of Max Yasgur's farm.

I was invited for the first Woodstock. Actually, I started the programme.

A few performances have been left out of the various Woodstock soundtracks and film edits over the years, most notably The Grateful Dead.

Between Trump's election and Brexit, there were all sorts of opinions coming out of the woodwork that I thought had died out a long time ago. I was like, 'What's the point?' All we do is bad things. The history of humanity is the history of people exploiting each other.

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.

The Woody Guthrie 'Dust Bowl' tunes were really fascinating.

I was also a big Woody Allen fan. When I got into college I listened to Lenny Bruce but it's taken me years to put him into context historically and really get what he did.

Historically, Hollywood comedy has arrived in skinny envelopes. From fence post Buster Keaton to herky-jerky Jerry Lewis to wiry nerve-bundle Woody Allen to hung-loose Richard Pryor to whippy contortionist Jim Carrey, its comics and clowns have tended to be sliced thin and bendable.