Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. I
must study politics and war that my sons may have
liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My
sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy,
geography, natural history, naval architecture,
navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to
give their children a right to study painting,
poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry,
and porcelain.
- John Adams (1735-1826)
In a few hundred years, when the history of our
time will be written from a long-term perspective,
it is likely that the most important event
historians will see is not technology, not the
Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented
change in the human condition. For the first time
- literally - substantial and rapidly growing
numbers of people have choices. For the first
time, they will have to manage themselves. And
society is totally unprepared for it.
- Peter F. Drucker
History is the record of an encounter between
character and circumstance
- Donald Creighton, Canadian historian (1902-1979).
A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history,
when we step out from the old to the new, when an
age ends, and when the sound of a nation, long
suppressed, finds utterance.
- Jawaharial Nehru
Indian Prime Minister
I am not caused by my history--my parents, my
childhood and development. These are mirrors in
which I may catch glimpses of my image.
- James Hillman
There is properly no history; only biography.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
History is the science of what never happens
twice.
- Paul Valery
Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give
you a man who will make history. Give me a man
with no goals and I'll give you a stock clerk.
- J.C. Penney
History can never be covered up.
- Zhu Rongji
prime minister of China, as quoted by The New York Times
Throughout history it has been the inaction of
those who could have acted the indifference of
those who should have known better, the silence of
the voice of justice when it mattered most, that
has made it possible for evil to triumph.
- Haile Selassie
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that
is life without theory.
- Benjamin Disraeli
If we could read the secret history of our
enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow
and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We learn from history that we learn nothing from
history.
- George Bernard Shaw
What we take for the history of nature is only the
very incomplete history of an instant
- Denis Diderot
Every time history repeats itself, the price goes
up. I have heard it said that the first ingredient
of success the earliest spark in the dreaming
youth -- is this: dream a great dream.
- John A. Appleman
History abhors determinism, but cannot tolerate
chance.
- Bernard De Voto (1897-1955)
American author, journalist and critic
History may be divided into three movements: what
moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears
not to move at all.
- Fernand Braudel (1902-1985)
French historian
Does history record any case in which the majority
was right?
- Robert A. Heinlein
