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History Quotes
"When reflecting upon it today, that the Pearl Harbor attack should have succeeded in achieving surprise seems a blessing from Heaven. It was clear that a great American fleet had been concentrated in Pearl Harbor, and we supposed that the state of alert would be very high."
81
"Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time."
70
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
70
"It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out."
69
"I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies."
67
"The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence."
67
"During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high."
66
"Oh, do not read history, for that I know must be false."
65
"To investigate the history of man's development, the most important finds are, of course, hominid fossils."
63
"But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?""Yes, I am fond of history.""I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all - it is very tiresome."
63
"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."
61
"The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar till their voluntary withdrawal from the island, A.D. 420,- that is, about five hundred years."
61
"It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition."
61
"I think people in general have neglected to learn about history."
61
"It is essential that we enable young people to see themselves as participants in one of the most exciting eras in history, and to have a sense of purpose in relation to it."
60
"How fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave."
60
"I got a call to come in and meet Fox, and the rest is history."
59
"The history of Christianity, therefore, must be of concern to all who are interested in the record of man and particularly to all who seek to understand the contemporary human scene."
59
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."
59
"Christianity is usually called a religion. As a religion it has had a wider geographic spread and is more deeply rooted among more peoples than any other religion in the history of mankind."
58
"Let us make sure that the supreme fact of the 20th century is that they tread the same path."
58
"History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them."
57
"In man - in the history of mankind, this has happened many times, and occupation leaders hang on to the land that they're occupying. People fight to liberate their land. But in the end, the people's will is what achieves victory."
57
"I did this within a philosophical framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the greatest villain in the history of lobbying."
57
"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."
56
"The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful."
56
"Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land, stole Sutter's land, Guerrero' s land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen. They put up houses and barns, they turned the earth and planted crops. And these things were possession, and possession was ownership.The Mexicans were weak and fed. They could not resist, because they wanted nothing in the world as frantically as the Americans wanted land."
56
"My object will be, first, to show by what connections the history of the fossil bones of land animals is linked to the theory of the earth and why they have a particular importance in this respect."
55
"In the history of the treatment of depression, there was the dunking stool, purging of the bowels of black bile, hoses, attempts to shock the patient. All of these represent hatred or aggression towards what depression represents in the patient."
55
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