History Quotes

Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.

~ Thucydides

People are inclined to accept all stories of ancient times in an uncritical way -even when those stories concern their own native counties...Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

~ Thucydides

The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. Crowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny—two vultures—have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intellectual development. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes.Every science has been an outcast.All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves. The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous regime the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypo

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

It is, however, a most astonishing but incontestable fact, that the history of the evolution of man as yet constitutes no part of general education. Indeed, our so-called 'educated classes' are to this day in total ignorance of the most important circumstances and the most remarkable phenomena which Anthropogeny has brought to light.

~ Ernst Haeckel

History was ignorant and had a mean streak, so it tended to repeat.

~ Raymond L. Atkins

Christian missions to India imply that India is a land of heathens, and, therefore, stands on the same level with the Andaman or the Fiji Islands. That a country which has been recognised in all ages the world over as the mother of all religions and the cradle of civilisation should be considered as pagan, shows how much ignorance prevails in Christendom. Since the Parliament of Religions, I have been studying Christian institutions, and I have also studied the way in which the Christian ministers and the missionaries are manufactured in this country, and have learned to pity them. We must not blame them too severely, because their education is too narrow to make them broad-minded. I grant that they are good-hearted, that they are good husbands and often fathers of large families, but generally they are very ignorant, especially of the history of civilisation and of the philosophy of religion of India. Most of them do not even know the history of ancient India.We know that in this age of competition, centralisation, and monopoly, very many people are forced out of business. The English say, 'The fool of the family goes into the Church'; so that when a youth is unable to make a living, he takes to missionary work, goes to India, and helps to introduce among the Hindus the doctrines of his church, which have long since been exploded by science.

~ Virchand Gandhi

If the Pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, geography, history or philosophy, if it is not inspired concerning slavery, polygamy, war, law, religious or political liberty, or the rights of men, women and children, what is it inspired in, or about? The unity of God?—that was believed long before Moses was born. Special providence?—that has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages. The rights of property?—theft was always a crime. The sacrifice of animals?—that was a custom thousands of years before a Jew existed. The sacredness of life?—there have always been laws against murder. The wickedness of perjury?—truthfulness has always been a virtue. The beauty of chastity?—the Pentateuch does not teach it. Thou shalt worship no other God?—that has been the burden of all religions.

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

It has been said at various points in history that the current sum of humanknowledge is but a fraction of that which was once known, yet now is lost.Likewise, it is argued with simple mathematics that any sum of knowledge wemay yet accrue must always equate to virtually nothing when compared to theinfinity of what is. Apparently our's is a fate of perpetual ignorance. What then is truly lost in the course of human events?(attrib: 'R.I.B. Ushguriud', Note On The Text)

~ Robert Robert

the lies of centuries, the lies of love,the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christwill be your bedmates and tombstonesin a death that will never end.

~ Charles Bukowski

Indeed, to this day, I think if you blame everything on the government, you're not just wrong, you're being reckless. It's as silly as blaming everything on the Freemasons, or the Illuminati, or insert-bad-guy-here. But I do believe that someone must ask the hard questions, especially of our elected officials as well as powerful men who become members of so-called secret societies. Remember: Governments don't lie. People lie. And if you want the real story, you need to find out more about those people.

~ Brad Meltzer

Mythology is a set of primitive lies that people rarely believe. This is rather different from history, which is a set of lies that people believe.

~ Ashwin Sanghi

It's true what they say, then-history is written by the victors.

~ Cinda Williams Chima

The aloo gobi is perhaps to North India what apple pie is to America. It is cheap and easy to make. Like most Indian dishes, you can make aloo gobi in as complex or rudimentary a fashion as you wish. You can eat it with rice, rotis, parathas or even with sliced white bread. A little leftover aloo gobi between two slices of white bread, toasted in one of those clamp sandwich-makers, and served with ketchup and mint chutney, is one of the greatest breakfast achievements of our species.

~ Sidin Vadukut

Whereas once medieval Europe had adhered to a common Catholic religion, a common Latin language, and common well-spiced cuisine (at least, for the elite), the balkanization of the Christian world along national lines now meant that nations could no longer gather around the same table as easily as before. Even though it would take some years, the Europe-wide fashion for spices-as much as Latin-would be a casualty of Martin Luther's squabble with the bishop of Rome.

~ Michael Krondl

You might be offered oatcakes as well as bread (especially in the north). If these do not tempt you, consider eating horse-bread. This is made from a sort of flour of ground peas, bran, and beans–if contemporaries look at you strangely, it is because it is not meant for human consumption.

~ Ian Mortimer

Integrating the beauty of seasonal change into the residence was a concept that remains true even today even in the more cramped, inner city machiya.

~ Judith Clancy

Eating connects us to our histories as much as it connects our souls to our bodies, our bodies to the earth.

~ Evan D.g. Fraser

The answer to all questions of human society is in the lessons of human history, which are revealed in the Bible.

~ Sunday Adelaja

This is an extremely difficult matter for modern readers of the gospels to grasp, but Luke never meant for his story about Jesus's birth at Bethlehem to be understood as historical fact. Luke would have had no idea what we in the modern world even mean when we say the word history. The notion of history as a critical analysis of observable and verifiable events in the past is a product of the modern age; it would have been an altogether foreign concept to the gospel writers for whom history was not a matter of uncovering facts, but of revealing truths.

~ Reza Aslan

Using a combination of history, common sense, the Word of God and the Spirit of God, every leader can generally predict the way things will go.

~ Dag Heward-Mills

If you believe the Bible is true, you ought to know that demons are real. The Bible is filled with references of evil and demons, and Christ repeatedly cast out demons, so I believe the universe is much more complex and mysterious than it may appear to our senses.

~ D.l. Koontz

The universe stood still and the universe continued on its path, travelling through endless time.

~ D.b. Nielsen

When every fact, every present or past phenomenon of that universe, every phase of present or past life therein, has been examined, classified, and co-ordinated with the rest, then the mission of science will be completed. What is this but saying that the task of science can never end till man ceases to be, till history is no longer made, and development itself ceases?

~ Karl Pearson

One of the most striking results of modern investigation has been the way in which several different and quite independent lines of evidence indicate that a very great event occurred about two thousand million years ago. The radio-active evidence for the age of meteorites; and the estimated time for the tidal evolution of the Moon's orbit (though this is much rougher), all agree in their testimony, and, what is far more important, the red-shift in the nebulae indicates that this date is fundamental, not merely in the history of our system, but in that of the material universe as a whole.

~ Henry Norris Russell

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

~ Edwin Powell Hubble

There are reasons to doubt that what we call the laws of physics necessarily apply everywhere in the universe—or that they were applicable to every time in its history.

~ Michael Brooks

The gap that was created during those transatlantic voyages hundreds of years ago.That gap is the matrix of Saudade – The Longing, I think, that all Africans in the West have, that is at the root of the blues and jazz and soul and rap. If you listen you can hear it, elusive, fleeting, full of melancholy anger.

~ Bonnie Greer

The official erasure of any existence before enslavement – as if black Americans did not exist before the yolk and the chains and whip – has always created a passion for us.Black people need to find out. We have to find out Who We Are and Where We Come From.

~ Bonnie Greer

There are two kind of people in the world those who wish to be remembered, and those who are always remembered.

~ Kartik Mehta

People are more willing to support the exercise of authority over themselves when they believe it to be an objective, neutral feature of the natural world. This was the idea behind the concept of the divine right of kings. By making the king appear to be an integral part of God's plan for the world rather than an ordinary human being dominating his fellows by brute force, the public could be more easily persuaded to bow to his authority. However, when the doctrine of divine right became discredited, a replacement was needed to ensure that the public did not view political authority as merely the exercise of naked power. That replacement is the concept of the rule of law.

~ John Hasnas

As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill.

~ Thomas Sowell

History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

~ Montesquieu

The creators of the Constitution were not purple-robed scholars, sitting in their ivory towers attempting to put abstract theories into play, but men who had come to realize that their system of government was broken. These men desired desperately to repair it.

~ C.l. Gammon

A country of free men is not free if they are owned by somebody else.

~ Joseph P. Sekula

4,Real men are men who have devoted their lives to solving the problem of others and giving a helping hand to those they meet in their journey through life. These are the kind of men that history can never forget.

~ Bien Sufficient

Throughout history, there have been people who mattered more. Some of them, like Ulysses S. Grant and Winston Churchill and Jonas Salk, changed the course of history in grand strokes. Others, like Reuben Styrlund and Dora Salk, made a meaningful difference on a smaller stage...Remembered or not lived out in a small town or on the world's stage, the journey of relevance matters.

~ Marian Deegan

Humans make their own history, but not under circumstances of their choosing.

~ John Lanchester

... the vintage of history is forever repeating ~ same old vines, same old wines!

~ E.a. Bucchianeri

It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I dont believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God - who knows all that can be known - seems powerless to change.

~ Cormac Mccarthy

Nothing changes; we humans repeat the same sins over and over, eternally.

~ Isabel Allende