History Quotes

History, is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men and woman. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Our nation was created in ways that allow human potential to prosper, and it created the greatest nation for people in the history of humanity. Now Obama is dismantling it, because he has no appreciation for our greatness. In fact, he resents it. He blames this country for whatever evils he sees around the world.

Rush Limbaugh

All the gossip and craziness becomes a kind of sustained narrative which, in turn, can become history. It's scary.

Barbara Kruger

Not only is the Napoleonic dream stronger today in our imaginations than it has ever been, but one can already feel the slow falling away of moral opprobrium from our memory of Hitler. In another fifty years we may well find ourselves weighed down by a second monstrous dream of pure grandeur to match that of the Emperor. Two men who dared. Two men who were adored. Two men who led with brilliance. Two men who administered fairly and efficiently. Two men who were modest in their own needs but surrounded by lesser beings who profited from their situation and came between the Hero and the people.

John Ralston Saul, Voltaire

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

William McKinley

Film is the manipulative medium par excellence. When you think back on the history of film and the 20th century, you see the propaganda that's been made. So there are moral demands on the director to treat the spectators as seriously as he or she takes himself and not to see them merely as victims that can be manipulated to whatever ends they have.

Michael Haneke

We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes.

Doug Coupland

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

Howard Nemerov

We have our own history, our own language, our own culture. But our destiny is also tied up with the destinies of other people - history has made us all South Africans.

Mangosuthu Buthelezi

The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

Walter Bagehot

What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president, who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that, he is a centrist, just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life.

Henry Louis Gates

History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

Thomas Huxley

Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.

Saul Williams

Beating Pakistan is always special because they are a tough team and we have a bit if a history regarding Pakistan.

Sachin Tendulkar

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.

Henry James

Let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.

Janeane Garofalo

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.

Arthur Erickson

An Edwardian lady in full dress was a wonder to behold, and her preparations for viewing were awesome.

William Manchester

In my early 20s, I studied history and politics, and I really thought that perhaps I would devote my life to that.

Wallace Shawn

China has all the advantages in the world. But it doesn't have a history of free thinking, risk-taking pioneers - the kind of people the U.S. is built upon.

James Dyson