Historical Quotes

The dark shadow we seem to see in the distance is not really a mountain ahead, but the shadow of the mountain behind - a shadow from the past thrown forward into our future. It is a dark sludge of historical sectarianism. We can leave it behind us if we wish.

I am not a fan of historical fiction that is sloppy in its research or is dishonest about the real history.

I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes.

Why would you create a movie for black people if you don't understand the history and perspective of the people you are doing it for? You need historical perspective to make sound decisions.

Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history.

The historical problem of the United States is to admit that it is a multiracial and multi-ethnic nation.

A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

I have long been active in and supportive of conservation and historical preservation causes.

In all the areas within which the spiritual life of humanity is at work, the historical epoch wherein fate has placed us is an epoch of stupendous happenings.

I love England and the historical aspect of it.

I hated historical novels with fluttering cloaks.

It is this conception of the unity of the human career which is perhaps the greatest achievement of historical study, since it gained a place analogous to that of natural science.

I am not someone who believes I am going to find a historical scoop.

Species go extinct because there are historical contraints built into a given body or a given design.

My own view is that taping of conversations for historical purposes was a bad decision on the part of all the presidents. I don't think Kennedy should have done it. I don't think Johnson should have done it, and I don't think we should have done it.

There is no justifiable prediction about how the hypothesis will hold up in the future; its degree of corroboration simply is a historical statement describing how severely the hypothesis has been tested in the past.

Thus, in accordance with the spirit of the Historical School, knowledge of the principles of the human world falls within that world itself, and the human sciences form an independent system.

Any Southern nationalist movement, especially one that wraps itself in the Confederate flag, is going to be viewed with suspicion, given the historical record.

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.

Pictures can and do make a difference. Strong images of historical events do have an impact on society. They can help with change.

Presently, the Commission for Commemorating 350 Years of American Jewish History has been brought about to encourage and sponsor a variety of historical activities that advance our understanding of the American Jewish experience as it marks this milestone anniversary.

What is new in all of this is that the old poles of attraction represented by nation-states, parties, professions, institutions, and historical traditions are losing their attraction.

I have the most profound respect for the Department of Justice and the FTC. We in Europe are a younger and I would say junior institution to the historical antitrust experience of the US.

One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.

If the September 11 terror attack is supposed to constitute a caesura in world history, it must be able to stand comparison to other events of world historical impact.

A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories.

Many novelists take well-defined, precise characters, whose stories are sometimes of mediocre interest, and place them in an important historical context, which remains secondary in spite of everything.

The earliest phase of social formations found in historical as well as in contemporary social structures is this: a relatively small circle firmly closed against neighboring, strange, or in some way antagonistic circles.

I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. That's a good thing.