Quotes on History

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.

I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren't supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown - watch the raindrops coming down the window pane?

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. Ludwig Wittgenstein

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.

God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.

From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.