History Quotes

It is a remarkable fact in the political history of man that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional government which has been the work exclusively of foresight and wisdom. They have all been the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances.

~ John C. Calhoun

History does not repeat itself. Nor does it unfold in cycles. The real future is contingent, rich beyond imagining, a perennial gobsmack, tragic and glorious in equal measure; the pundits' future, spun of 'conventional wisdom,' is only a sucker punch to that common-sense fact.

~ Rick Perlstein

Real history is far more complex and interesting than the simplistic summaries presented in Wikipedia articles. Knowing this allows you to question received wisdom, to challenge 'facts' 'everybody' knows to be true, and to imagine worlds and characters worthy of our rich historical heritage and our complex selves.

~ Ken Liu

The more I draw and write, the more I realise that accidents are a necessary part of any creative act, much more so than logic or wisdom. Sometimes a mistake is the only way of arriving at an original concept, and the history of successful inventions is full of mishaps, serendipity and unintended results.

~ Shaun Tan

I think cars encapsulate the history of innovation and style - it's the other side of the coin of the car being public enemy No.1.

~ Norman Foster

In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.

~ Lawrence Summers

For me, it is essential to have the inner peace and serenity of prayer in order to listen to the silence of God, which speaks to us, in our personal life and the history of our times, of the power of love.

~ Adolfo Perez Esquivel

The question that we must ask is whether we are making progress toward the goal of universal peace. Or are we caught up on a treadmill of history, turning forever on the axle of mindless aggression and self-destruction?

~ F. W. De Klerk

When the war was in progress, England and France agreed wholeheartedly with the Fourteen Points. As soon as the war was won, England, France, and Italy tried to frustrate Wilson's program because it was in conflict with their imperialist policies. As a consequence, the Peace Treaty was one of the most unequal treaties ever negotiated in history.

~ Sun Yat-Sen

We have such a long, familiar history with Peter Falk. The minute his mug is on that screen people smile.

~ Paul Reiser

And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died.

~ Julien Benda

I wanted to tell a romantic and dark side of Ottoman history that was also slightly political, saying to the previous generation of writers, 'Look, I'm interested in Ottoman things, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm doing something creative.'

~ Orhan Pamuk

NASA projects often have romantic names that link into a long history of exploration and adventure: Atlantis and Discovery, for example.

~ Hanna Rosin

In some sense, I'm a romantic. I like the idea of organic history and tradition.

~ Rory Stewart

I think that baseball as a whole, I am a huge romantic when it comes to the history and the stats and the numbers the stories behind it, so I would consider myself a pretty big fan.

~ Graham Elliot

Say what you will about Queen Eleanor, she was a savvy, quick-witted woman who made her mark on history. And as the founder of the Courts of Love, what better patron monarch could there be for a romantic novelist?

~ Lauren Willig

The essential relationship across American history between black people and white people is one of exploitation and one of plunder. This is not, you know, necessarily about, you know, whether you're a good person or not or whether you see black people, you know, on the street, and you're willing to shake their hands and be polite.

~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Minimalism seems closest to the sophisticated storytelling of movies. Movies have really educated contemporary audiences to be the most intelligent, sophisticated audiences in history. We don't any longer need to have the relationship between one scene and the next explained. We will figure it out ourselves.

~ Chuck Palahniuk

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

~ Lady Gaga

When one is the type of writer who cares about the meaning of the historically specific setting, the history itself is not something that I would call backdrop. It's not window dressing for a timeless relationship about love and betrayal. For me, the setting and the specific history are active co-agents with me in trying to form the novel.

~ Rachel Kushner

Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.

~ James Fenton

The Bible is not just one book, but an entire library, with stories, songs, poetry, letters and history, as well as literature that might more obviously qualify as 'religious.'

~ John Drane

The applause of his native land is the richest reward to which the patriot ever aspires. It is this for which 'he bears to live or dares to die.' It is the high incentive to those achievements which illustrate the page of history and give to poetry its brightest charm.

~ John Tyler

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

~ Aristotle

The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that in history, social studies or the art of fiction.

~ Joseph Brodsky

Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry.

~ Seamus Heaney

I do think digital media encourages speed-reading, which can be fine if one is simply seeking information. But a serious novel or work of history or volume of poetry is an experience one should savor, take time over.

~ Michael Dirda

Muhammadan law in its relation to women, is a pattern to European law. Look back to the history of Islam, and you will find that women have often taken leading places - on the throne, in the battle-field, in politics, in literature, poetry, etc.

~ Annie Besant

There's never been a culture without poetry in the history of the world.

~ Edward Hirsch

When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature.

~ Joseph Gordon-Levitt

History gives you insight of the same quality of truth as poetry or philosophy or a novel.

~ Simon Schama

A glance at the history of European poetry is enough to inform us that rhyme itself is not indispensable. Latin poetry in the classical age had no use for it, and the kind of Latin poetry that does rhyme - as for instance the medieval 'Carmina Burana' - tends to be somewhat crude stuff in comparison with the classical verse that doesn't.

~ James Fenton

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.

~ Tahar Ben Jelloun

More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.

~ Andrew Motion

Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.

~ Robert Staughton Lynd

I grew up here, and it's always been a very diverse community. So for people to come out and say that there's some long-standing anger or there's a history of racial tension is absolutely ridiculous. There's not a black-white divide in Ferguson.

~ James Knowles Iii

My first reaction every time I delve into an episode of history that I don't know very much about is... my first reaction is anger that my teachers never taught me about it.

~ Steven Spielberg

I was a pretty angry kid, and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

~ Caleb Carr

To hear both critics and defenders talk about the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, you'd think the most successful Supreme Court justices had been warm, collegial consensus-builders. But history tells a different story.

~ Noah Feldman

I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passe abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.

~ Camille Paglia