Human History Quotes - Page 2

• "Are we alone in the universe?" This is a question which goes back to the dawn of history, but for most of human history it has been in the province of religion and philosophy. Fifty or something years ago, however, it became part of science.

  Paul Davies

  Philosophy, Years, Dawn

  Source: bigthink.com

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• To fail to properly contextualize content has historically been the basis for the slaughter of millions of people in every century throughout human history. To ignore context is the greatest source of catastrophe for every generation of man, and it continutes on in the present time with the same catastrophic consequences. There is no greater lesson that needs to be learned to reduce human suffering and bring ignorance to an end.

  David Hawkins

  Truth, Ignorance, Men

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• But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Russia, Government

  "Christendom in Dublin". Book by G. K. Chesterton, Ch. III: Very Christian Democracy., 1932.

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• You think OWS is radical? You think 350.org was radical for helping organize mass civil disobedience in D.C. in August against the Keystone Pipeline? We're not radical. Radicals work for oil companies. The CEO of Exxon gets up every morning and goes to work changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. No one has ever done anything as radical as that, not in all of human history.

  Bill McKibben

  Change, Morning, Work

  "The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium" by Bill McKibben, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 5, 2011.

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• It is useless saying that we do not accept the gods of the primitive world. In form, no; in essence, yes. The fact before us is that all ideas of gods can be traced to the earliest stages of human history.... There is an unbroken line of descent linking the gods of the most primitive peoples to those of modern man. We reject the world of the savage; but we still, in our churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, perpetuate the theories he built upon that world.

  Chapman Cohen

  Men, Ideas, Essence

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• By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.

  Carl Sagan

  Fate, Thinking, Other Worlds

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 13: "Who Speaks for Earth?", 1990.

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• ...for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white.

  Alan Watts

  Years, White, Black

  Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.37, Souvenir Press

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• I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Dog, Animal, Civilization

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, November 2, 2009.

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• Steven Spielberg making a Ready Player One movie is going to change the course of human history as pertains to how quickly virtual reality is adopted. He's going to shows the whole world the potential of VR, which is one of the reasons I think he's doing it. Once you have to compose for 360 degrees, and a movie is different every time you watch it depending on where you choose to look, it's like the dawn of a new era.

  Ernest Cline

  Player, Reality, Thinking

  "Author Ernie Cline Was Told Video Games Would Rot His Brain, But Who Holds the High Score Now?". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. July 10, 2015.

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• Embellishment is an irresistible and consuming impulse, going back to the beginnings of human history. ... Probably the strongest motivating force is the simplest: the inability of almost everyone to ever leave well enough alone.

  Ada Louise Huxtable

  Inability, Enough, Embellishment

  Ada Louise Huxtable (1986). “ARCHITECTURE, ANYONE?”, Random House

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• I ... believe the study of human history remains important and should not be banned. We should ensure that any archaeological studies are conducted with sensitivity and respect. Reburying relics, in my view, does not help anyone go anywhere.

  Richard Leakey

  Believe, Views, Important

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• Since periods of great change, such as the present one, come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world.

  Dalai Lama

  Life, Use, World

  Dalai Lama, Anne Benson, Fabien Ouaki (2016). “Imagine All the People: A Conversation with the Dalai Lama on Money, Politics, and Life As It Could Be”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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• The six thousand years of human history form but a portion of the geologic day that is passing over us: they do not extend into the yesterday of the globe, far less touch the myriads of ages spread out beyond.

  Hugh Miller

  Science, Years, Yesterday

  Hugh Miller (1857). “An Autobiography: My Schools and Schoolmasters; Or, The Story of My Education”, p.441

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• We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid.

  Noam Chomsky

  Smart, Stupid, Entering

  Noam Chomsky (2007). “Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance”, p.1, Macmillan

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• Capitalism is the only society in human history in which neither tradition nor conscious direction supervises the total effort of the community; it is the only society in which the future, the needs for tomorrow, are entirely left to an automatic system.

  Robert Heilbroner

  Effort, Community, Needs

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• One person can make all the difference in the world. For the first time in recorded human history, we have the fate of the whole planet in our hands.

  Chrissie Hynde

  Fate, Hands, Differences

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• [Theodore Roosevelt] was a naturalist on the broadest grounds, uniting much technical knowledge with knowledge of the daily lives and habits of all forms of wild life. He probably knew tenfold more natural history than all the presidents who had preceded him, and, I think one is safe in saying, more human history also.

  John Burroughs

  Knowledge, Science, Thinking

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• This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.

  Christiana Figueres

  Firsts, Tasks, Development

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• Here is Christianity. Whence came it? It is a force in the world, a prodigious force. It has revolutionized society. It has lifted man out of himself. It has changed the face of the world. There it lies, imbedded in more than eighteen centuries of human history; and history of no mean sort, the best record of the race.

  Herrick Johnson

  Lying, Mean, Men

  Herrick Johnson (1881). “Christianity's Challenge: And Some Phases of Christianity Submitted for Candid Consideration”

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• Religion is the most widely debated and least agreed upon phenomenon of human history.

  Georgia Harkness

  Religion, Phenomenon, Humans

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• ... on the whole 'blasphemy' has been a force for good in human history. It is part of the process by which millions of people have come to reject theocracy and think for themselves.

  Katha Pollitt

  Thinking, People, Process

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• As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.

  Kevin Rudd

  Apology, Past, Years

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

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• This is the greatest society in all of human history, the greatest country ever. Many of the decisions being made in Washington today by both parties are threatening that greatness. And if we stay on this road we're on right now, our children are going to be the first Americans ever to inherit a diminished country.

  Marco Rubio

  Country, Children, Party

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• There is something in human history like retribution; and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not by the offended, but by the offender himself. The first blow dealt to the French monarchy proceeded from the nobility, not from the peasants. The Indian revolt does not commence with the ryots, tortured, dishonoured and stripped naked by the British, but with the sepoys, clad, fed and petted, fatted and pampered by them.

  Karl Marx

  Blow, Historical, Firsts

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Ilʹich Lenin (1986). “India, National Liberation and Class Struggles: A Collection of Classical Marxist Writings”

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• We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

  Ayn Rand

  Gun, Government, Historical

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.320, Penguin

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