History Quotes
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The ancient triumph of Christianity proved to be the single greatest cultural transformation our world has ever seen.
Without it the entire history of Late Antiquity would not have happened as it did.
We would never have had the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Renaissance, or modernity as we know it.
There could never have been a Matthew Arnold. Or any of the Victorian poets. Or any of the other authors of our canon: no Milton, no Shakespeare, no Chaucer.
We would have had none of our revered artists: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, or Rembrandt. And none of our brilliant composers: Mozart, Handel, or Bach.
To be sure, we would have had other Miltons, Michelangelos, and Mozarts in their places, and it is impossible to know whether these would have been better or worse.
But they would have been incalculably different.
Bart Ehrman
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In America we have a Declaration of Independence, but our history, our advancements, our global strength all point to an American declaration of interdependence.
Cory Booker
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We are always remaking history. Our memory is always an interpretive reconstruction of the past, so is perspective.
Umberto Eco
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Vietnam is about halfway around the world from Washington. It's as large as the major European nations, with nearly 130,000 square miles... Its ancient recorded history goes back to 111 B.C... We entered (that country) with considerable ignorance.
Barry Goldwater
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You are not the product of your circumstances. You are a composite of all the things you believe, and all the places you believe you can go. Your past does not define you. You can step out of your history and create a new day for yourself. Even if the entire culture is saying, "You can't." Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to you does. You can keep going forward.
Oprah Winfrey
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It was interesting to shoot history as it happens, without anyone demanding a huge story.
D. A. Pennebaker
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This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.
John Perkins
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Every memorable act in the history of the world is a triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it because it gives any challenge or any occupation, no mater how frightening or difficult, a new meaning. Without enthusiasm you are doomed to a life of mediocrity but with it you can accomplish miracles
Og Mandino
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Modern scientific knowledge appeared piecemeal. Historians wrote about human history; physicists tackled the material world; and biologists studied the world of living organisms. But there were few links between these disciplines, as researchers focused on getting the details right.
David Christian
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"The [London] Times" has published no rumours; it's only reported facts, namely that other, less responsible papers are publishing certain rumours.
Tom Stoppard
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History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.
Philip Guedalla
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I believe human beings mark a threshold in the development of the planet, of course, but it is only part of the picture. What Big History can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power, with collective learning.
David Christian
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It is more important to me that my students come out of my class believing This story is interesting and I might want to know more about it, than to fill them up with information. If I can remind them or convince them that history is interesting then I feel I have succeeded, because unlike chemistry or physics, history is a subject that anyone can teach themselves, if they are interested.
H. W. Brands
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When a liberal is abused, he says, ‘Thank God they didn’t beat me.’ When he
is beaten, he thanks God they didn’t kill him. When he is killed, he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from its mortal clay.
Vladimir Lenin
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Jesus remains the most influential person in history, one who has inspired untold followers for millennia.
Jay Parini
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My mother was always deeply attracted to anything medical, and I think she would have loved me to have been a doctor. My father was in the army for 21 years, came out just before I was born. There was no history of showbusiness on either side of the family, but they were completely supportive.
Lindsay Duncan
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History turns me on. I was terrible at it at in school, but as I get older, I get more and more into it.
Andrew Lincoln
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I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public Information and the history books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the truth wouldn't sound too good (...) The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless. Somehow I don't think even Public Information could turn that into good copy.
David Weber
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I think Chelsea is better placed than any team in the history of the game.
Alan Hansen
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We are born, we live, we disappear. One of the chilling aspects of history is the swiftness with which it carries us into oblivion.
David Ebershoff
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The fact that, with time, this League [of Nations]-which was presumably designed by its founders to exist for all eternity-cannot be coupled with a Treaty the short term of which is inherent in its own weaknesses and impracticabilities, is a point which can perhaps be contested by today's interested parties, but which will one day be deemed a matter of course in history.
Adolf Hitler
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If you read about Mussolini or Stalin or some of these other great monsters of history, they were at it all the time, that they were getting up in the morning very early. They were physically very active. They didn't eat lunch.
A. N. Wilson
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Although drag has a long cultural history in America, it remained largely underground till the late 1980s.
Jenna Wortham
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If you check back through human history, you will find that three things, more than any others, have produced social transformation: violence, knowledge and wealth - and the greatest of these is wealth!
C. Wagner