The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.

It’s a very good historical book about history.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I think war is so incredibly backward, and I don’t think it’s intelligent, and it’s not sane. So why would you want to support it?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.

We must always remember that the Chinese revolution was not a peasant’s revolution, but one of the extreme Right.

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.

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.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!

The American escalation of the war in Laos provoked a response by the Communist forces, which now control more of Laos than ever before.

Nixon was no more a saint than he was a great president.

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

Latin America has much richer resources. You’d expect it to be far more advanced than East Asia, but it had the disadvantage of being under imperialist wings.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

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

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

I hope I’m wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy – worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

In the history of medicine, it is not always the great scientist or the learned doctor who goes forward to discover new fields, new avenues, new ideas.

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

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

The earth is bountiful, and where her bounty fails, nitrogen drawn from the air will refertilize her womb. I developed a process for this purpose in 1900. It was perfected fourteen years later under the stress of war by German chemists.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

War is the province of danger.

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

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.

I disagree with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.

America means far more than a continent bounded by two oceans. It is more than pride of military power, glory in war, or in victory. It means more than vast expanse of farms, of great factories or mines, magnificent cities, or millions of automobiles and radios.

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

There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.

To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the U.S.A. won the medal of gold. The Greeks said, ‚You’re better than the Cassius of old.‘

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

Treachery has existed as long as there’s been warfare, and there’s always been a few people that you couldn’t trust.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson’s. There’s no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.

I come from – I came from Wales, and it’s a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don’t waste time being soft. I’m not cold, but I don’t like being, wasting my time with – life’s too short.

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

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

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.

I’ve been interested in Japan since the 1930s, when I read about Japan’s vicious crimes in Manchuria and China.