Famous Quotes & Sayings

Stefan Zweig

Against my will, I became a witness to the most terrible defeat of reason and to the most savage triumph of brutality ever chroniclednever before did a generation suffer such a moral setback after it had attained such intellectual heights.

Thomas B. Macaulay

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

Thomas B. Macaulay

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.

Thomas B. Macaulay

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

Thomas B. Macaulay

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.

Stanley Kubrick

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

Tacitus

No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.

Tacitus

This I regard as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.

Tom Peters

Never, ever rest on your laurels. Today's laurels are tomorrow's compost.

John Quincy Adams

What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the fields and vallies, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness?

Norman Cousins

History is a vast early warning system.

Miguel de Cervantes

A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

John W. Gardner

History never looks like history when you are living through it.

John Robert Seeley

History without politics descends to mere Literature.

Marge Piercy

Never doubt that you can change history. You already have.

Theodore Roosevelt

The greatest historian should also be a great moralist. It is no proof of impartiality to treat wickedness and goodness on the same level.

Theodore Roosevelt

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm.

Theodore Roosevelt

If given the choice between Righteousness and Peace, I choose Righteousness.

Theodore Roosevelt

Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life.

Theodore Roosevelt

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value.

Theodor Adorno

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

Max Nordau

[H]istory is a melodrama on the theme of parasitism, characterized by scenes that are exciting or dull, as the case may be, and many a sudden stagetrick.

Matthew Arnold

On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called History, a foam-bell more or less is no consequence.

Max Beerbohm

History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.

Mark Steyn

When Cromwell instructed his portraitist to paint him 'warts and all', he meant both halves of that equation. To teach the warts alone is morbid and unhealthy.

Penelope Lively

History unravels; circumstances, following their natural inclination, prefer to remain ravelled.

Nikita Khrushchev

I know what I say at times is not very diplomatic.

Nicolas Chamfort

There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.

Nicolas Chamfort

Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.

N. Scott Momaday

Anything is bearable if you can make a story out of it.

Mason Cooley

History goes out of control almost as often as nature does.

Mason Cooley

Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.

Oscar Wilde

Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.