Quotes about History

True faith is not a leap in the dark; it's a leap into the light. We shouldn't be afraid of the facts. If God is God, he is the God of reality and facts and science and history.

Heroism and ignominy both are part of our history. The only question is whether, having seen both, we can repent of the one and rejoice and be inspired by the other. Or whether we will let one of them tempt us so far away from the other that we have a deeply distorted view.

Most British citizens had never seen anyone branded or whipped or subjected to thumbscrews. They had no idea that conditions on West Indian sugar plantations were so brutal that most of the slaves were literally worked to death in just a few years and most of the female slaves were too ill to bear children.

It is sufficient for us that we witness their humiliation," he said. "Posterity will huzza for us."

No one in the history of the world had ever conceived of the idea that there could be a rebellion against a leader that would end not in a new leader but in a new kind of leadership altogether—a leadership that was accountable to those whom it led.

Luther always maintained that he was probably born in 1484, but neither Luther nor even his own mother could be sure, and current reckoning puts it more likely at either 1482 or 1483, with the preponderance of evidence favoring the latter, so that in the course of this book we shall use that year.

God wants to see human beings, not ghosts who shun the world. In the whole of world history there is only one real significant hour ... the present ... if you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.

Indeed, not just the problems but the loud cry "Reform!" had been heard here and there for centuries before Luther.

The Gospel of Christ was the most powerful sociological leveler in history.

By the time Whitefield died in 1770, an inconceivable 80 percent of the population of the American colonies had heard him preach at least once.

If we believe miracles cannot happen today but happened to our distant ancestors, what we really seem to be saying is not that miracles happened back then but, rather, that all those people back then were naive enough to believe they happened. It is to say that miracles never happened, but gullible people thought they did.

There is power in remembrance, recalling, and memorial celebration.