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History Quotes


"In capitalist history, invasion and class struggle are not opposites, as the official legend would have us believe, but one is the means and the expression of the other."


"It is not observed in history that families improve with time."


"I am privileged to be a citizen of the single greatest society in all of human history."


"So when I read this story, it unlocked a volcano of unanswered questions, because the questions had never been asked. It was an opportunity to come to terms with the lot of repressed history - and history of repression."


"History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums."


"Never in our country's history have we witnessed a natural disaster that has impacted so many people in such a wide area. In fact, as of the writing of this column, millions of people along the Gulf Coast have been displaced from their homes in a period of only five days."


"I don't want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn't pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country."



"In exchange for power, influence, command and a place in history, a president gives up the bulk of his privacy."


"If privacy ends where hypocrisy begins, Kitty Kelley's steamy expose is a contribution to contemporary history."


"I'm somewhat horrified because I don't think the young people today even know what history is. Some of them don't' even study History at school anymore or Geography and they don't know where one place is from another."


"It avoids a self-conscious relationship to the act. We live in the most self-conscious society in the history of mankind. There are good things in that, but there are also terrible things. The worst of it is, that we find it hard to give ourselves to the cultural process."


"The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons."


"Americans are good with to-do lists; just tell us what to do, and we'll do it. Throughout our history, we have proven that. Colonize. Check. Win our independence. Check. Form a union. Check. Expand to the Pacific. Check. Settle the West. Check. Keep the Union together. Check. Industrialize. Check. Fight the Nazis. Check."


"I have in this War a burning private grudge-which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light."


"Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history."


"Marxism is an interpretation of history which explains the progress of society as a product of the expansion of the forces of production of the material means of life, that is, the development of economy."


"Nobody should ever try to second-guess history, the facts are fantastic enough."


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



"A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'"


"History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition."



"History isn't like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time."


"When the Chinese first came to San Francisco, they were actually welcomed by the mayor and they had special ceremonies for them-again this is when their colony was very small, only a few Chinese."


"Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it."


"History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from one environment to another."


"When the machine had been fastened with a wire to the track, so that it could not start until released by the operator, and the motor had been run to make sure that it was in condition, we tossed a coin to decide who should have the first trial. Wilbur won."


"I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from."


"More emphasis was thus thrown upon the local governments than in England."


"It's a huge challenge, a huge responsibility. Bond is a huge iconic figure in movie history. These opportunities don't come along very often so I thought, 'Why not?'"


"In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down."


"The history of nations shows that words are not always immediately followed by action."


"History has repeatedly shown that when a new method or material becomes available, new uses for it arise."


"All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
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