Quotes about History

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world.

I walk out into a Nature such as the old prophets and poets, Manu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, that I have seen.

There's no new news, just old news with new dates.

For the improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.

Moses came to understand that his involvement in God's work was in the context of hundreds of years of divine activity. When Moses came face to face with the same God who had guided his forefathers, he was deeply humbled. Do you sense that your life is a part of God's eternal purposes?

In glades they meet skull after skull/Where pine-cones lay--the rusted gun,/Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat/And cuddled-up skeleton;/And scores of such. Some start as in dreams,/And comrades lost bemoan:/By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged--/But the Year and the Man were gone. (The Armies of the Wilderness)

Actors didn't use to be celebrities. A hundred years ago, they put the theaters next to the brothels.

Israel being condemned by the EU, which 66 years ago watched with glee as its Jews were being mass murdered. That is pretty rich.

It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes.

Rome is one enormous mausoleum. There, the Past lies visibly stretched upon his bier. There is no today or tomorrow in Rome; it is perpetual yesterday.

I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.