Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

We no longer think of chairs as technology; we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn’t worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often ‚crash‘ when we tried to use them.

How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

The men who followed Him were unique in their generation. They turned the world upside down because their hearts had been turned right side up. The world has never been the same.

The Medici created and destroyed me.

John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.

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

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

History should be written as philosophy.

We are proud of the history of our country; we learned it in school and have grown up hearing of freedom, justice and human rights.

The bat is not a toy, it’s a weapon. It gives me everything in life, which helps me to do everything on the field.

I’m afraid the SS’s relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.

I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo. I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don’t know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.

No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it’s different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I’m using my own memory, and I’m using my collective memory.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.

Up until the 1920s, everyone thought the universe was essentially static and unchanging in time.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

I want to go down in the history books with what I’ve achieved.

I love nerdy, cute, quirky boys who don’t take themselves too seriously.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

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.

I’ve never doubted that apartheid – because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil – was going to bite the dust eventually.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

History isn’t just the story of bad people doing bad things. It’s quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong.

When you find a guy who is powerful, a big father figure, you latch onto him immediately.

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.

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.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

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

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city’s biggest strength, and it is Toronto’s unique strength.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: ‚This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.‘ Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

The whole history of pop music had rested on the first person singular, with occasional intrusions of the second person singular.

Well before September 11, it was understood that with modern technology, the rich and powerful will lose their near monopoly of the means of violence and can expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as Richard the Lion-Hearted, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‚Let us pray.‘ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

The Spanish Empire eventually collapsed because of its expensive taste for warfare and conquest.

What is past is prologue.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

You go back to the 17th century, the commercial and industrial centers of the world were China and India.

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

I do like Burial; he’s so curiously clumsy, you can’t help but be moved. It’s so un-Hollywood, and the rhythms are so un-danceable.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

The Bible is full of warnings about false prophets and false messiahs. These satanically inspired people have appeared in almost every generation of history.