"What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak."
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Historical quotes
Historical
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Historical quotes (page 10 of 57)
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"U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control."
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"Somewhat by historical happenstance the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China - also were the original five countries to have nuclear weapons."
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"Miracles have no claim whatever to the character of historical facts and are wholly invalid as evidence of any revelation."
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"You get into theological education and you're busy marking papers and getting into administration in raising funds and doing all the things that are part of life, but here we were talking about important theological, historical, gospel related, biblically centered things hour after hour after hour."
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"History is rooted in the future"
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"I have a multivolume history of the world from the 19th century that begins with Noah's flood as though it's as historical a fact as the rise and fall of Rome."
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"Through its imperialist system Britain brought about untold suffering of millions of people. And this is an historical fact. To be able to admit this would increase the respect, you know, which we have for British institutions."
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"Please go on, make your threats. I don't like to submit to mere implication."
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"There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany. [Adolf] Hitler was appealing to groups with similar grievances, and giving them crazy answers, but at least they were answers; these groups weren't getting them anywhere else. It was the Jews and the Bolsheviks [that were the problem]."
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"But every historical statement and legitimization itself moves within a certain relation to history."
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"A mirror does not develop because an historical pageant passes in front of it. It only develops when it gets a fresh coat of quicksilver in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel's success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter."
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"The Old Testament contains fabulous elements. The New Testament consists mostly of teaching, not of narrative at all: but where it is narrative, it is, in my opinion, historical. As to the fabulous element in the Old Testament, I very much doubt if you would be wise to chuck it out."
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"I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust."
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"This doesn't mean abandoning our values and ideals; wherever we can, it's in our interest to help foster democracy through the diplomatic and economic resources at our disposal."
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"We should be more modest in our belief that we can impose democracy on a country through military force."
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"I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately."
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"Usually when I go to a place for the first time, unless there's something historical or spectacular that nature has to offer, the first thing I like to do is see what's on the minds of the people."
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"It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions, not repeated assessment of their validity."
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"I love historical movies. I want to make a violent medieval epic."
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