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Quotes by Historian
"No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe."
21
"A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in."
20
"Rumours are like sexually transmitted diseases, both are spread by whores."
20
"Muslims may fall short of Islam but Islam will never fall short of Muslims."
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"The missiles come first, and the justifications come second."
20
"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."
20
"Policy was not reconsidered because the governing group had no habit of purposeful consultation."
20
"Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many."
20
"Enormity of the stakes became the new self-hypnosis."
20
"Government was rarely more than a choice between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
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"If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself."
20
"Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality."
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"Prison does not silence ideas whose time has come."
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"The tribal pull of patriotism could have no better testimony."
20
"It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge; and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world."
19
"One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim."
19
"Society's revenge matched its fright."
19
"Say what you have to say in the fewest possible words."
19
"To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse."
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"Fake friends are like shadows: always near you at your brightest moments, but nowhere to be seen at your darkest hourTrue friends are like stars, you don't always see them but they are always there."
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"Never speak about private affairs for the general public to hear."
19
"Money may not be able to buy her love but it will definitely make her pay attention."
19
"The ancient Roman code belongs to a class of which almost every civilised nation in the world can show a sample, and which, so far as the Roman and Hellenic worlds were concerned, were largely diffused over them at epochs not widely distant from one another."
19
"Between the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls."
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"Television has spread the habit of instant reaction and stimulated the hope of instant results."
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"To those who think them selves strong, force always seems the easiest solution."
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"The members of such a society consider that the transgression of a religious ordinance should be punished by civil penalties, and that the violation of a civil duty exposes the delinquent to divine correction."
19
"An event of great agony is bearable only in the belief that it will bring about a better world. When it does not, as in the aftermath of another vast calamity in 1914-18, disillusion is deep and moves on to self-doubt and self-disgust."
19
"The Roman Code was merely an enunciation in words of the existing customs of the Roman people."
19
"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."
18
"Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years."
18
"No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good."
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