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"If we go back in the history of different nations, violence and the use of force are part of their heritage. These are the traditions of mankind."
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"In the legal respect, after the execution of the supposed incendiaries, the other half of Moscow burned down."
"In the parlor was a huge camera on wheels like the ones used in public parks, and the backdrop of a marine twilight, painted with homemade paints, and the walls papered with pictures of children at memorable moments: the first Communion, the bunny costume, the happy birthday. Year after year, during contemplative pauses on afternoons of chess, Dr. Urbino had seen the gradual covering over of the walls, and he had often thought with a shudder of sorrow that in the gallery of casual portraits lay the germ of the future of the city, governed and corrupted by those unknown children, where note even the ashes of his glory would remain."
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
"History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies."
"Nothing is long ago in an archive, my dear. In the records we treat the dead as same as the living. that's the whole point of keeping papers. It doesn't matter if it's a hundred years or only a few weeks. It's all filed away, fresh as the day it went under the covers."
"In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement."
"One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics."
"But all these hints at foreseeing what actually did happen on the French as well as on the Russian side are only conspicuous now because the event has justified them. If the event had not come to pass, these hints would have been forgotten, as thousands and millions of suggestions and supposition are now forgotten that were current at the period, but have been shown by time to be unfounded and so have been consigned to oblivion."
Explore more quotes by Harri Holkeri
"There are big issues, like the reform of the Security Council. These kinds of questions are something the President of the General Assembly must keep his eye on."
"If there is something I would like to do as President of the General Assembly, it is to place more emphasis on the issue of education, which enables a better life for women."
"Finland had a civil war less than 100 years ago, just like in Ireland. If you look at the history of newly independent nations, civil war is almost every time present, even in the United States."
"There are many challenges, there are many obstacles; let us try to change the obstacles to advantages."
"If you come to a negotiation table saying you have the final truth, that you know nothing but the truth and that is final, you will get nothing."
"I recently reread an article of mine written in 1964, and I think it is still valid. There is not much difference. Many of the items on the agenda 37 years ago are still there."
"In international or national crises, there are always questions of lack of confidence. You have to change the minds of the people in order to get results."
"I really do hope that the Millennium Summit gives new impetus to the work of the United Nations."
"That is where consensus-building begins-with the idea that you have your own truth, but that the negotiator on the other side of the table has his own truth as well."
"I think we have grave problems. I am very much concerned about environmental questions, even though in Finnish society, we are not facing the most urgent problems."
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