top of page
"I hated the lost colony; in second grade, we were doing American History, and they said, We don't know what happened to them. That drove me nuts. That lost colony drove me crazy."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more History quotes

"Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It's a crime."Fuka-Eri thought about that for a moment.Tengo went on, "Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves."

"Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself."

"Most of Jesus' life is told through the four Gospels of the New Testament, known as the Canonical gospels, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are not biographies in the modern sense but accounts with allegorical intent. They are written to engender faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the incarnation of God, and not to provide factual data about Jesus's life. This left the door of exaggeration open. And through that door all kinds of mystical non-sense crept in and made place right alongside the good philosophical teachings of Jesus."

"It must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom's specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery."

"You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know."

"There probably was a time when the idea of having a toilet inside a house was repulsive."

"The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4."
Explore more quotes by Sarah Vowell

"I get younger people who watch Conan or The Daily Show, but before that it was mostly people who knew me from public radio. Those people are kind of old."

"I didn't come from any kind of academic background, but I lived in a college town and I knew people who weren't without pretense. There was this idea in the town that if something was European it would be good."

"History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting."

"The whole point of Louis Armstrong is that no one can really figure him out. There was a while where I thought you could try."

"One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes."

"The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War-when I really think about them they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea."

"I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms."
bottom of page