Historical Quotes - Page 5

• Thousands of years ago, weren't we capable of building enormous structures like the pyramids? Weren't we capable of worshiping gods, weaving, making fire, finding lovers and wives, sending written messages? Of course we were. But although we've succeeded in replacing slaves with wage slaves, all the advances we've made have been in the field of science. Human beings are still asking the same questions as their ancestors. In short, they haven't evolved at all.

  Paulo Coelho

  Years, Pyramids, Fire

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• These are the times for which we were born.

  David Spangler

  Destiny, Born

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• This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.

  Walter Benjamin

  Angel, Past, Wings

  "Theses on the Philosophy of History". Book by Walter Benjamin, 1955.

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• What would it mean if there were a theory that explained everything? And just what does "everything" actually mean, anyway? Would this new theory in physics explain, say the meaning of human poetry? Or how economics work? Or the stages of psychosexual development? Can this new physics explain the currents of ecosystems, or the dynamics of history, or why human wars are so terribly common?

  Ken Wilber

  War, Mean, Ecosystems

  Ken Wilber (2001). “A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

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• Young Alexander conquered India.
  He alone?
  Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army?
  Philip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
  Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who
  Triumphed with him?

  Bertolt Brecht

  War, Army, Years

  Bertolt Brecht, “A Worker Reads History”

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• We're not going to waste our valuable space or your precious energy by giving equal time to stories of tragedy, failure, and tumult. They get far more that their fair share of attention everywhere else. Future historians might even conclude that our age suffered from a collective obsessive-compulsive disorder: the pathological need to repetitively seek out reasons for how bad life is.

  Rob Brezsny

  Media, Space, Giving

  Rob Brezsny (2005). “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”, p.66, Frog Books

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• "Playing" the resources of characterology for the sake of clarification and insight into the structures of actual existence is many times more daunting than playing a piano; it requires the thinking of chords of thoughts, not just isolated simplisms or abstracta; it demands the shaping or encompassing of morphological modes of intelligence that can comprehend gestalten, syndromes, historical and civilizational patterns in which it is not the particulars but their interactive significance (as an ensemble of actualities or principles) that is vital.

  Kenny Smith

  Philosophy, Thinking, Piano

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• The thing people forget when they are looking for solutions is there is nothing final in history.

  Amira Hass

  People, Finals, Forget

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• There is no nobler profession, nor no greater calling, than to be among those unheralded many who gave and give their lives to the preservation of human knowledge, passed with commitment and care from one generation to the next.

  Laurence Overmire

  Future, Commitment, Giving

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• Even as regards Earth we are more committed to history than to geography, more committed to time than to space. History is endless. Place is limited.

  Thomas Berry

  Space, Earth, Geography

  Thomas Berry (2011). “The Great Work: Our Way into the Future”, p.92, Crown

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• The success or failure of any historical age is the extent to which those living at that time have fulfilled the special role that history has imposed upon them.

  Thomas Berry

  Success, Special, Age

  Thomas Berry (2011). “The Great Work: Our Way into the Future”, p.7, Crown

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• You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done.

  Ian Kershaw

  Men, Damn You, Generations

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• No civilization can exist part free and part slave.
  
  ..We have never had any other kind of civilization. It has always been that way. There has always been a division of man. There has always been the conqueror and conquered-the master and slave-the ruler and the ruled-the oppressor and the oppressed. There has never been content nor unity. There has been only discontent and disunity.

  Walter Russell

  Men, Civilization, Unity

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• There are reveries so deep, reveries which help us descend so deeply within ourselves that they rid us of our history. They liberate us from our name. These solitudes of today return us to the original solitudes.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Self, Names, Solitude

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• History can tell us what happened in the past. But it cannot assert that it must happen again in the future.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Past, Happened, Happens

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• The supremacy of public opinion determines not only the singular role that economics occupies in the complex of thought and knowledge. It determines the whole process of human history.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Public Opinion, Roles, Economics

  Ludwig Von Mises (1963). “Human action: a treatise on economics”

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• "For even the most childish intoxication with progress will soon be forced to recognize that writing and books have a function that is eternal. It will become evident that formulations in words and the handling on of these formulations through writing are not only important aids but actually the only means by which humanity can have a history and continuing consciousness of itself."

  Hermann Hesse

  Book, Mean, Writing

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• The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.

  Max Weber

  Art, Philosophy, Fate

  Max Weber (2013). “From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology”, p.155, Routledge

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• The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but what takes place in our hearts.

  Arthur Keith

  Heart, Sky, Determined

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• To write history is as important as to make history. It is an unchanging truth that if the writer does not remain true to the maker, then it takes on a quality that will confuse humanity.

  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

  Writing, Humanity, Important

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• It is best to erase all personal history because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people

  Carlos Castaneda

  People, Personal History, Erase

  Carlos Castaneda (1972). “Journey to Ixtlan: the Lessons of Don Juan”, [Vancouver, B.C.] : Vancouver Taped Books Project

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• Sometimes history knocks at the most ordinary door to see if anyone is home. Sometimes someone is.

  Robert Fulghum

  Home, Doors, Ordinary

  Robert Fulghum (2011). “Maybe (Maybe Not): Second Thoughts from a Secret Life”, p.226, Ballantine Books

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• History is rooted in the future

  Terence McKenna

  Rooted

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• The effect on human consciousness of the experience of the Presence of God is subjectively transformative and identical throughout human history. It leaves a timeless mark that is verifiable as a calibration of a recorded level of conciousness.

  David Hawkins

  Levels, Consciousness, Timeless

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• Do not let us speak of darker days, let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days-the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

  Winston Churchill

  Country, Memorable, Dark

  Speech at Harrow School, Harrow, England, 29 Oct. 1941

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