Born to a tribal Bedouin family of nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. It is affirmed that his paternal grandfather died fighting against the Italian invaders when Libya was invaded by them in 1911.

I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.

Social struggles have been taking place throughout millennia, since human beings, by resorting to wars, were able to take hold of a surplus production to satisfy the essential needs of life.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

History, a distillation of rumour.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

I was born in London in England in 1934. I went through, as a child, the horrors of World War II, through a time when food was rationed and we learned to be very careful, and we never had more to eat than what we needed to eat. There was no waste. Everything was used.

You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Jewelry and pins have been worn throughout history as symbols of power, sending messages. Interestingly enough, it was mostly men who wore the jewelry in various times, and obviously crowns were part of signals that were being sent throughout history by people of rank.

History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left – which prevails in our education system from elementary school to postgraduate study – are not likely to get much attention.

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You’re looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.

If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.

If you look back at the history of the twentieth century, Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia several times.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

Cuba came to be the last country to get rid of Spanish colonialism and the first to shake off the heinous imperialist tutelage.

Everybody has forgotten that Russia helped start the Second World War.

I see Libya as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a sovereign State of the nearly 200 members of the United Nations.

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

You may agree or not with Gaddafi’s political ideas, but no one has the right to question the existence of Libya as an independent state and member of the United Nations.

The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation, and they got infected with malaria, and partly ‚cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.

The Medici created and destroyed me.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who’s been successful at another college program, they’re going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn’t give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

In one thousand years of Russia’s existence, its first popular national election ever to be held occurred in June 1991. Six days later, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed in Moscow!

I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.

What is past is prologue.

I had nearly finished school because I was making effort not that bad on that. But there was a law in Germany after the war. You could not make your final examination before 18, so lots of people who were late because of the way had to do it first.

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.

Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

During the 60’s, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

Woz is living his own life now. He hasn’t been around Apple for about five years. But what he did will go down in history.