"Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life."
History quotes
History
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History quotes (page 20 of 82)
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"It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood."
"None but blockheads copy each other."
"Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it."
"What is amusing now had to be taken in desperate earnest once."
"The Battle of Koom Valley is the only one known to history where both sides ambushed each other."
"All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon"
"History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny."
"Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do."
"I shall be an Attila to Venice."
"Artists, like the Greek gods, are only revealed to one another."
"It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment"
"The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history."
"My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water."
"Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths."
"The mind's direction is more important than its progress."
"History has thrust something upon me from which I cannot turn away."
"When God wants to speak and deal with us, he does not avail himself of an angel but of parents, or the pastor, or of our neighbor."
"A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity."
"All geologic history is full of the beginning and the ends of species-of their first and last days; but it exhibits no genealogies of development."