History Quotes - Page 34

It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

History is past politics, and politics is present history.

[History is] that terrible mill in which sawdust rejoins sawdust.

Skepticism is history's bedfellow.

The scum of the earth... but what fine soldiers we have made them.

Compare the scale and magnifcence of Versailles with St James's - the brick-built hovel in which the 18th-century kings of England lived. What was then the most powerful monarchy in the world housed its sovereigns in a converted leper hospital, yet, at the same time, parliament provided the magnificent palaces of Chelsea and Greenwich as hospitals for retired soldiers and sailors.

If my people are wiped out you must destroy all photographs of us, because future generations will look at our photographs and be too ashamed at such a crime against humanity.

Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.

We are all citizens of history.

Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.

The only important thing to realise about history is that it all took place in the last five minutes.

The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.

Peter Jones's is a vital public service. He reminds us that while we shouldn't live in the past, we are wiser and stronger when we live with it.

Change is scientific; progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me.

[History is] petrified imagination.

Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.

It takes all sorts to make a world - saints as well as soldiers.

From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.

Death is the only thing we haven't succeeded in completely vulgarizing.

We need a war every 10 years, so we can stay match fit in case the Germans try again.

The historian does simply not come in to replenish the gaps of memory. He constantly challenges even those memories that have survived intact.

In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life.

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience (in this case, the judge or the jury) that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.

History, history! We fools, what do we know or care.