"History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of environment and the pressures of the air we breathe."
Lord Acton (Cited
in
Handbook to the History of Christianity
(Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans,
1977), p. 2.
William H. Borah
"The barbarian and the creature of exclusively modern civilization both live without history."
Jakob
Burckhardt
"Throughout recorded history, without exception, it has been the sole accomplishment of
organized government to deprive their populations of liberty and of their property."
John C. Calhoun
"The Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April, 1521, may be
considered as the greatest scene in Modern European History; the point, indeed, from
which the whole subsequent history of civilization takes its rise. [...]The world's pomp
and power sits there on this hand: on that, stands up for God's Truth, one man, the poor
miner Hans Luther's Son. [...] It is, as we say, the greatest moment in the Modern History
of Men. English Puritanism, England and its Parliaments, Americas, and vast work these two
centuries; French Revolution, Europe and its work everywhere at present: the germ of it
all lay there: had Luther in that moment done other, it had all been otherwise! The
European World was asking him: Am I to sink ever lower into falsehood, stagnant
putrescence, loathsome accursed death; or, with whatever paroxysm, to cast the falsehoods
out of me, and be cured and live?"
Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship
"I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the
young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is
this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always
attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."
G.K. Chesterton
"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see."
Winston Churchill
"History
will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
Winston Churchill
"Not to know what has transacted in former times is to continue always a child."
Marcus Tullius Cicero"History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances."
Donald Creighton,
Canadian
historian (1902-1979)
Will Durant
"I desire no future that will break the ties of the past."
George Eliot
"History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."
Edward
Gibbon
"Reason creates science; sentiments and creeds shape history."
Gustave Le Bon
Robert E. Lee
Dr. Grady McWhiney,
Professor
of History, Texas Christian University
"The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster."
Ludwig von Mises
"History has witnessed the failure of many endeavors to impose peace by war, cooperation by coercion, unanimity by slaughtering dissidents....... A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets."
"History teaches us that traditions, values and freedom itself are lost incrementally in a thousand careless little steps."
William J. Moloney"Throughout the history of the United States, war has been the primary impetus behind the
growth and development of the central state. It has been the lever by which presidents
and other national officials have bolstered the power of the state in the face of
tenacious popular resistance."
Bruce D. Porter, (1952- ) Professor of political science at Brigham Young University
Source: "War and the Rise of the State", 1994
"Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any
act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpertrated by disciples of altruism?"
Ayn Rand
"History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."
Ronald Reagan
"Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the
indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice
when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
Haile Selassie, (1892-1975) Emperor of Ethiopia
"What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure
of the human race."
Thomas Sowell
"Because of the neglect of history in our educational system, most people have no idea
how many of the great American fortunes were created by people who were born and raised
in worse poverty than the average welfare-recipient today."
Thomas Sowell
"In
all history there is no war
which was not
hatched by the governments, the governments
alone, independent of the
interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when
successful."
"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this
penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ
is easily the most dominant figure in all history."
H.G. Wells, British author (1866-1946)