History Quotes - Page 6

• I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

  Winston Churchill

  Determination, Military, War

  Speech in House of Commons, 13 May 1940

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• That historians should give their own country a break, I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds it difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to and critical of historians, and they in turn should be constantly on their guard.

  Polybius

  Friendship, Country, Mistake

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• Pearl Harbor is strenuously respectful of contemporary sensitivities, sometimes at the cost of accuracy.

  A. O. Scott

  Cost, Pearls, Sometimes

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• France and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing, though, is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster.

  Johnny Depp

  Europe, America, People

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• All my life I've been aware of the Second World War humming in the background. I was born 10 years after it was finished, and without ever seeing it. It formed my generation and the world we lived in. I played Hurricanes and Spitfires in the playground, and war films still form the basis of all my moral philosophy. All the men I've ever got to my feet for or called sir had been in the war.

  A. A. Gill

  Philosophy, War, Men

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• It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths.

  Herbert J. Muller

  Mistake, Past, Men

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• Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Inspirational Life, Biographies, Theory

  Contarini Fleming pt. 1, ch. 23 (1832) See RalphWaldo Emerson 11

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• History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Historical, Way, Endless

  1978 In The Listener, 20 Apr.

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• History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

  Abba Eban

  Funny, Sarcastic, War

  Speech in London, 16 Dec. 1970, in The Times 17 Dec. 1970

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• All history, of course, is the history of wars.

  Penelope Lively

  War, Courses

  Penelope Lively (2007). “Moon Tiger”, p.25, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?

  Thomas Carlyle

  Products

  "The Works of Thomas Carlyle".

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• Almost the whole of history is but a sequence of horrors.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Horror, Whole, Sequence

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  I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

  Winston Churchill

  Funny, Leadership, Education

  Sir Winston Churchill (1966). “Irrepressible Churchill: a treasury of Winston Churchill's wit”

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• They fought on with a devotion which would puzzle the generation of the 1980s. More surprising, in many instances it would have baffled the men they themselves were before Pearl Harbor. Among MacArthur's ardent infantrymen were cooks, mechanics, pilots whose planes had been shot down, seamen whose ships had been sunk, and some civilian volunteers.

  William Manchester

  Men, Volunteer, Generations

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• History is not a pattern-book of fossilized ideologies.

  F. M. Powicke

  Book, Patterns, Ideology

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• We learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Men, Oxymoron, Funny Oxymoron

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• I believe that history is not made by cynics. It is made by realists who are not afraid to dream. Let us be these people.

  Tzipi Livni

  Dream, Strong Women, Believe

  "Kerry Hopes To Defy Skeptics Of Mideast Peace Talks". "Morning Edition" with David Greene, www.npr.org. July 31, 2013.

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• The world's history is constant, like the laws of nature, and simple, like the souls of men. The same conditions continually produce the same results.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Simple, Men, Law

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• History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.

  A. J. P. Taylor

  Past, Names, People

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• Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

  John Adams

  Freedom, Patriotic, Generations

  Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.173, UPNE

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• History -- its what those bitter old men write.

  Jackie Kennedy

  Writing, Men, Bitter

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• Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Witty, Time, Powerful

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• The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.

  George W. Bush

  Country, War, Yesterday

  George W. Bush (2010). “Decision Points”, p.141, Random House

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• There is no wisdom equal to that which comes after the event.

  Geraldine Jewsbury

  Wisdom, Events, Equal

  Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (2009). “Zoe: The History of Two Lives”, p.145, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The history of mankind is little else than a narrative of designs which have failed and hopes that have been disappointed.

  Samuel Johnson

  Design, Littles, Narrative

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson”, p.398

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