Quotes about History

At a minimum, in explaining evolutionary pathways through time, the constraints imposed by history rise to equal prominence with the immediate advantages of adaptation.

History employs evolution to structure biological events in time.

I like the catholicity in time: our tradition is one of 2,000 years.

Some of the presidents were great and some of them weren't. I can say that, because I wasn't one of the great presidents, but I had a good time trying to be one, I can tell you that.

There have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking.

Life is deep, but our current politics is shallow. The history of this country is like the stuff of great art and philosophy, while our current politics is more on the level of gossip magazines. It is shallow and tawdry, an unworthy vehicle for grappling with the meaning of what we are going through. We need to think more deeply if we're to create more powerfully. We need to focus on a broader understanding of the American story and commit ourselves to rewriting it.

From abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights activists here in America, to the international effort of the Allied forces during World War II and the team that rescued the boys in Thailand, the world has seen what happens when collective efforts dedicated to justice, peace, democracy, and love overcome forces that mitigate against them. History has shown what fear can do, but it has also shown us what love can do.

Archaeological evidence now argues for the existence of a twenty-thousand-year period of history when men and women lived as equals, with neither sex dominating the other. The earth flourished. The so-called feminine qualities of compassion, nurturing, and nonviolence were shared by men and women alike and were the most vital elements of social structure. Women were revered as priestesses and healers.

The creative spirit thrives on freedom and daring. Many of history's most creative women have not been married. As for the priestesses of olden times, don't even think about it. Priestesses were spiritual mermaids, and a lot of men were drowning.

History, like beauty, depends largely on the beholder, so when you read that, for example, David Livingstone discovered the Victoria Falls, you might be forgiven for thinking that there was nobody around the Falls until Livingstone arrived on the scene.

If there are two definitive features of ancient Greek civilization, they are loquacity and competition.

The distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose and the other verse — you might put the work of Herodotus into verse, and it would still be a species of history; it consists really in this, that the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that might be. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.