top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Historian
"When everything else physical and mental seems to diminish, the appreciation of beauty is on the increase."
32
"The talk about balance, nuclear balance, seems to me to be metaphysical and doesn't seem to be real at all."
32
"The readings of Soviet society are as many as the experts you speak to. In my view, it's a society that is overdue for measures of democratization and organization."
32
"Money may not be able to buy her love but it will definitely make her pay attention."
32
"Clearly prize money received more serious attention than scurvy or signals."
32
"In the third century after Christ the faith continued to spread."
32
"The poet laureate of England talked about murdering Jews on the West Bank."
32
"Our misconception in viewing the past lies in assuming that doubt and fear, permit, protests, violence and hate were not equally present."
32
"Prison does not silence ideas whose time has come."
32
"Politics, as a practice, whatever its profession, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."
31
"That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment."
31
"The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been."
31
"The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where the limited will take you."
31
"We seek the truth and will endure the consequences."
31
"Every action is seen to fall into one of three main categories, guarding, hitting, or moving. Here, then, are the elements of combat, whether in war or pugilism."
31
"Sure the people are stupid: the human race is stupid. Sure Congress is an inefficient instrument of government. But the people are not stupid enough to abandon representative government for any other kind, including government by the guy who knows."
31
"The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by 500 readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the 500, he reaches the five hundred thousand."
31
"When primitive law has once been embodied in a Code, there is an end to what may be called its spontaneous development."
31
"The function of a genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve."
31
"I was able to sit at Lincoln's side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him."
31
"History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other."
31
"The missiles come first, and the justifications come second."
31
"Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life blood of real civilization."
31
"I was myself brought up with my brother, whose name was Matthias, for he was my own brother, by both father and mother; and I made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding."
31
"How much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII."
31
"A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge."
31
"To those who think them selves strong, force always seems the easiest solution."
31
"He seemed less in need of a secretary than of someone to listen to him."
31
"But if anyone supposes that there was no commercial fraud in the Middle Ages, let him study the commercial legislation of England for that period, and his mind will be satisfied, if he has a mind to be satisfied and not only a fancy to run away with him."
31
"In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person."
31
"No politician has ever yet been able to rule his country, nor has any country ever yet been able to face the world, upon the principles of the Sermon on the Mount."
31
"If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman."
31
"No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous."
30
"The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule."
30
"But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics."
30
"It is true that the politician, in his professional character, does not always, or even very often, conform to the most approved pattern of private conduct."
30
"Rumours are like sexually transmitted diseases, both are spread by whores."
30
"Education is the transmission of civilization."
30
bottom of page