History Quotes

That history just unfolds, independently of a specified direction, of a goal, no one is willing to admit.

Emil Cioran

Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?

Emil Cioran

There's a good reason why nobody studies history. It just teaches you too much.

Noam Chomsky

Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I do not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead. For our problems are large, but our heart is larger. Our challenges are great, but our will is greater. And if our flaws are endless, God's love is truly boundless. Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity shared, and written, together.

George Herbert Walker Bush

Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can, and we will, prevail.

George Walker Bush

The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.

George Walker Bush

Today, having come far in our own historical journey, we must decide: Will we turn back, or finish well? Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage. Like Americans before us, we will show that courage and we will finish well. We will lead freedom's advance. We will compete and excel in the global economy. We will renew the defining moral commitments of this land. And so we move forward optimistic about our country, faithful to its cause, and confident of victories to come.

George Walker Bush

The Senate and the country need Senators of courage who are prepared to make their mark on history by standing with past profiles in courage, and defending not party, not partisanship, but defending principle and democracy itself.

John Kerry

The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Thomas Carlyle

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

Willa Sibert Cather

The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws.

Barack Obama

This disclosure provides Obama an opportunity to appeal for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men. He still has plenty of time to go down in history as the President who looked into the abyss and stepped back, rather than leaping forward into it.

Edward Snowden

The lesson of all history warns us that we should negotiate only when our military superiority is so convincing that we can achieve our objective at the conference table, and deny the aggressor theirs.

Richard M. Nixon

History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski