“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
History is not just names and dates — it is the story of how we got here and a warning about where we might be headed. These quotes look at the past with curiosity, respect, and the awareness that those who ignore it tend to repeat it.
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
“I realise that I do not change the course of history. I am an actor, I do a movie, that's the end of it. You have to realise we are just clowns for hire. After I had success it was great, at first, not to worry about money. It was on my mind when I was growing up.”
“Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.”
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
“If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.”
“I think there's a lot of deep-rooted history in England with racing. Lots of Formula One teams are based there. Formula One is obviously a huge sport over in England and Europe.”
“Hollywood has a history of raising expectations beyond Washington's reach, of appealing to the very American desire to mythologize political leaders, particularly the president.”
“Well, I think that California has had a history of always spending more money than it takes in.”
“Imagine a part of the U.S.A., from which the U.S.A. started - where is the cradle of your history? This is Kosovo for Serbia.”
“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”
“Americans believe with all their heart, the vast majority of them, and the vast majority of Floridians, that the United States of America is simply the single greatest nation in all of human history.”
“One of the enduring problems with certain societies in the world - and this is certainly true of a lot of places in the Middle East - is that the capacity for self-governance and self-organizing just isn't there. It has to do with history.”
“Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.”
“Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.”