Quotes about History

“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”

“What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't just have a brilliant breakthrough idea out of nowhere and leap ahead of everyone else.”

“Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.”

“There is such a history and such a mystique around the name of Ferrari and the success that it has had. The whole imagery and legend of the red cars and what they mean to the world of automobiles and racing itself. It is hard to imagine F1 without them.”

“It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.”

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”

“Homosexuals can be, you know, committed to each other. And they have freedom to behave in the ways that they do, but they cannot be a family. They cannot be married. I mean, virtually every culture in the history of the world has considered marriage to be between one woman and one man.”

“Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke... and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research.”

“If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.”

“The Bible is not just one book, but an entire library, with stories, songs, poetry, letters and history, as well as literature that might more obviously qualify as 'religious.'”

“History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.”

“September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.”

“When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas.”

“I was determined to achieve the total freedom that our history lessons taught us we were entitled to, no matter what the sacrifice.”

“I was always told that I was good in mathematics, and I guess my grades and standardized test scores supported that. My worst subjects were those that generally involved a lot of reading - English and history. So, having good test scores in math and mediocre ones in reading, I was naturally advised to major in engineering in college.”

“In the entire history of the human species, every tool we've invented has been to expand muscle power. All except one. The integrated circuit, the computer. That lets us use our brain power.”

“History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

“No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

“The people who have really made history are the martyrs.”

“I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.”