Some mischievous people always there. Last several thousand years, always there. In future, also.

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.

Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?

Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.

Every writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.

It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation.

Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

I’ve never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be that way.

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

If you look at the history of our country over the last 100 years, there have been periods where science and research have been celebrated. They were really kind of held up as heroes in society, which encouraged a generation of people to go into these fields.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

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.

On one of my last days at school, the headmaster said I would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. That was quite a startling prediction, but in some respects, he was right on both counts!

For 25 years countless people have come to the U.N. climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future. I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not.

I don’t know which will go first – rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.

We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

We should not look down on our first ancestors.

We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.

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.

My biggest error? Something that is to happen yet.

NATO’s brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind.

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

My parents were of the generation who thought they were the children of a free Czechoslovakia, the only democracy in central Europe.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.

The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.

As a global society, we do not have to agree, endorse or condone the lifestyle choices of others. However, history has taught us that we equally cannot and should not excuse those who would hide behind religion or misuse God’s word to justify bigotry and persecution.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

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.

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

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.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

You entertain people who are satisfied. Hungry people can’t be entertained – or people who are afraid. You can’t entertain a man who has no food.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

The future of American film lies on television.

Elegance is usually confused with superficiality, fashion, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium and harmony.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.