Best History Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“Sometimes I hear the world discussed as the realm of men. This is not my experience. I have watched men fall to the ground like leaves. They were swept up as memories, and burned. History owns them. These men were petrified in both senses of the word: paralyzed and turned to stone. Their refusal to express feeling killed them. Anachronistic men. Those poor, poor boys.”

“We all knew the great lesson of history; I from reading it and they from living it. And the lesson is: it is more blessed to kill than to be killed.”

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

“The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates.”

“Heroes and scholars represent the opposite extremes... The scholar struggles for the benefit of all humanity, sometimes to reduce physical effort, sometimes to reduce pain, and sometimes to postpone death, or at least render it more bearable. In contrast, the patriot sacrifices a rather substantial part of humanity for the sake of his own prestige. His statue is always erected on a pedestal of ruins and corpses... In contrast, all humanity crowns a scholar, love forms the pedestal of his statues, and his triumphs defy the desecration of time and the judgment of history.”

“The many sorrows of our recent history suggest that we humans have a learning disability.”

“Let your heart shine even more than your face. The beautiful contents of your heart can never be forgotten, but your face will be a history.”

“Give me liberty or give me death.”

“Now what is history? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a view to overcoming death. That’s why people discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves, that’s why they write symphonies..”

“Father Jakob mentioned to her that military men took it personally when women at home were assaulted. They were away fighting for their country and they believed the men left behind had an obligation to take care of and protect the women on the homefront. Maeve knew from experience women mostly had to take care of themselves.”

“History is just a way of keeping score, but it doesn't have to be who we are.”

“That is a death I will think of often and with great fondness.”

“My faceless neighbor spoke up:”

“We're not words, Henry, we're people.”

“Conquer any destructive, recurring patterns. Do not allow bad history to repeat itself. Be part of a generation that says, "It ends right now, right here.”

“Make history and become a success. It is all in your hands. You have the power and the chance to make a difference.”

“Because my past does not make the sum of me. I'm free to move on and let my life lessons put the wind behind the rest of my life.”

“You know the saying: he who doesn't understand history is doomed to repeat it. And when it's repeated, the stakes are doubled.”

“Here dwell together still two men of note”

“How heavy my mind is,”

“here’s a toast to Alan Turing”

“history is what it is. it knows what it did.”

“Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.”

“I know history. There are many names in history”

“We can talk about our dreams all night, Lisette. We can talk forever, for the rest of our lives, living one adventure after another, I promise. But not now, my darling Lisette. For now, all I can think of is the brilliance of yet another ancient Greek, Sophocles. He said, 'One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life-that word is love.' I love you, Lisette. You bring my life joy I've never known. Please, marry me.”

“{Summertime she speaks of winter, she eats ham, but speaks of beef, got a good man but, flirts with another. She might as well go to hell, cause she ain't gonna be happy in heaven either!}”

“Brahma and Airavata”

“Matt was almost completely naked. A tattered loincloth and an ugly chain with a yellow diamond were his only apparel.”

“What I am trying to say is that insofar as religion and many other beliefs are concerned, my mind no longer possesses the power to imprison me; any punishment which I perceive to be doled out by God, is moreover the result of my own doing.”

“I want to propose a toast!" Taking a spoon he noisily tapped it against the crystal glass.  "Everyone!" He thundered, the large amount of whiskey he had consumed making him reckless.  "To Victor,  Ste. Genevieve's own inventor and my best friend, all the happiness in the world!"  The happy crowd shouted their approval.  "And to the ever, ever fair beauty Celena..." His voice cracking under the strain, and he wondered if he should stop now, before he embarrassed himself, before he made some horrible declaration.”