Quotes on History

I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next, a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter.

Every thought is an afterthought.

History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees.

I'm interested in the balance between big currents in history - the economies, the ideologies, social structures, and so on - and the decisions that people have to make. At the heart of all these great decisions to go to war, there are human beings who have to say, 'Yes, let's do it,' or 'No, we won't do it.'

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

We are so fortunate, as Australians, to have among us the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Cultures that link our nation with deepest antiquity. We have Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley that is as ancient as the great Palaeolithic cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux in Europe.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.

While I knew that individuals had in history - and still could - make a difference, it seemed presumptuous - even pompous - to imagine that I could be part of it, that I could be one of them.

If the history of resistance to Darwinian thinking is a good measure, we can expect that long into the future, long after every triumph of human thought has been matched or surpassed by 'mere machines,' there will still be thinkers who insist that the human mind works in mysterious ways that no science can comprehend.

Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.

I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.

We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the most prominent instrument for administering racism. But the racism doesn't actually come from the criminal justice system.

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

I, like many of the other women who made history and dared to step up to lead since the 2018 midterms, know we must all play a role in the battle for who we are and who we must be.

You can't understand European history at all other than through religion, or English literature either if you can't recognise biblical allusions.

The world has entered an era of the most profound and challenging change in human history.

Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history.

There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.

To have great poets, there must be great audiences.

I want to promote the introduction of art history in primary schools and to convince the general public that, even in a period of economic crisis, arts funding is an absolute necessity at the federal, state, and local levels.