Quotes on History

The study of history reveals that human progress has not been continuous and regular, but intermittent and spasmodic, often depending upon apparently accidental causes. It is difficult to get a cross-section view of society at any given stage.

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

It is idle to say that nations can struggle to outdo each other in building armaments and never use them. History demonstrates the contrary, and we have but to go back to the last war to see the appalling effect of nations competing in great armaments.

Every February, we reflect on and honor the achievements, struggles, and icons that comprise Black history. As a proud, Black man running for office and raising two young, Black boys in the South, I am acutely aware that I stand on the shoulders of giants.

I think Hefner himself wants to go down in history as a person of sophistication and glamour. But the last person I would want to go down in history as is Hugh Hefner.

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

Everyone is a reactionary about subjects he understands.

I believe that architecture is fundamentally a public space where people can gather and communicate, think about the history, think about the lives of human beings, or the world.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.

What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.