Quotes about history
48 quotes · 15 authors
Quotes
The most civilised nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireWars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal objects of history.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireThe contemporaries of Severus, in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman Empire.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireIn the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireAntoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireIt is the vague modern who is not at all certain what is right who is most certain that Dante was wrong. The serious opponent of the Latin Church in history, even in the act of showing that it produced great infamies, must know that it produced great saints. It is the hard-headed stockbroker, who knows no history and believes no religion, who is, nevertheless, perfectly convinced that all these priests are knaves.
Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
When Israel was first founded in 1948 and all my Jewish friends were jubilant, I was the skeleton at the feast. I said, ‘“We are building ourselves a ghetto. We will be surrounded by tens of millions of Muslims who will never forgive, never forget, and never go away.”
I was right.
p. 420
There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
p. 287
All history shows that we do not learn from the lessons of the past.
p. 17
You’re naïve Hari. Or not a historian, which is the same thing.
p. 457
