Quotes About History

What the word conservative means is not putting things back but conserving them. There are things that are threatened and you love them, so you want to keep them.

During the 41 years that have elapsed since Costa Rica abolished its army, our fundamental freedoms have never been threatened, nor do we know a shameful history of repression.

I think most Americans probably believe that our relationship with Japan began in 1941. In fact, obviously, it began in 1854 when Commodore Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor and threatened to burn it down unless they would open up to trade with us. The imperial impulse was first ours historically.

King Edward VIII was forced to abdicate because he was determined to marry a divorced woman. As a result of that decision, the Queen's father, George VI, was obliged to lead the country through a war that threatened its survival, with all the personal pain portrayed in 'The King's Speech.'

So many people had been asking me to write an autobiography, or threatening to write my biography without any input from me, that I thought I'd better tell my story before other people told it for me.

We defended our allies in Europe for 40 years during the worst days of the Cold War - very threatening days of the Cold War - and nothing happened. So deterrence does work.

For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats.

Of all the threats to free speech in history, the one the media give the most credibility to without question is the feminist movement, which is trying to rebrand public debate as harassment.

Folks, I can tell you I've known eight presidents, three of them intimately.

You can't sit down and write 300 compositions in a three-month period and think that you're doing it all by yourself. Obviously, there's something going on here. And whether you want to call it channeling or being connected to a creative force or knowing your history and knowing where you belong, that's, you know, maybe a personal thing.

It's not the one-half that's never been told; it's the three-quarters.

I think history shows that countries have to have some kind of a threshold level of economic success before they begin to have the means and the will to focus on the environment.

The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on 'The Arsenio Hall Show.' It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that.

Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners.

The skills I acquired in Southeastern Louisiana University, Thrifty Drugs, Pacific Mutual, along with knowing the history, behavior and local staff, helped make Golden Eagle a success story.

I like the thought that what we are to do on this earth is embellish it for its greater beauty, so that oncoming generations can look back to the shapes we leave here and get the same thrill that I get in looking back at theirs - at the Parthenon, at Chartres Cathedral.

I just love drawing on past human cultures; that's a thrill for me.

The ancient media of speech and song and theater were radically reshaped by writing, though they were never entirely supplanted, a comfort perhaps to those of us who still thrill to the smell of a library.

Imagine if you could go watch Mozart today, even if it's the last, crappiest show he ever played. What a thrill that would be.

I'm thrilled, I'm grateful, I'm blessed. I played for the world's greatest professional sports team in history. Once a Dallas Cowboy, always a Dallas Cowboy.

The thriller is not a recent invention. It probably goes back to the dawn of storytelling.

The first thriller ever? It was probably one from 1697. It was called 'Little Red Riding Hood.'

If you look before the '90s, you might not find many - if any - albums with multiple producers. It just didn't exist in the history of music. That would have been like Michael Jackson telling Quincy Jones, 'Look man, I know we did well on 'Off The Wall,' but I'm hot now, and I need to see some other producers for 'Thriller.''

New Orleans is thrilling. The history is as rich as the food.