Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Just wage a total war against these tyrants; I think we will do very well and our children will sing great songs about us years from now.
I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness.
Imagination plays too important a role in the writing of history, and what is imagination but the projection of the author's personality.
When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger.
Bill de Blasio was swept to the New York mayoralty on the promise of getting Gracie Mansion out from under the thumb of corporate elites.
I'm a historian. The act of predicting the future discomfits me, in any event - and the bigger the prediction, the more distrusting I am.
The greatest presidents have been those who demonstrated astute judgment in times of crisis - often despite the advice they were getting.
Joseph McCarthy and the John Birch Society launched an anti-Communist crusade that won the support of millions of Americans in the 1950s.
All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.
Then there is the usual scene when lovers are excited with each other, quarrels, entreaties, reproaches, and then fondling reconcilement.
Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.
A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism.
How should we begin to make amends for raising a generation obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth and indifferent to so much else?
The pleasures of mental agility are much overstated, inevitably - as it now appears to me - by those not exclusively dependent upon them.
I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a single or multiple godhead. I respect people who do, but I don't believe it myself.
In the case of [Donald] Trump, he was able to tell people that elites live in gated communities, where they have walls around their home.
Expose a child to a particular environment at this susceptible time and he will perceive in the shapes of that environment until he dies.
The position of the Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.
I think it's outrageous if a historian has a 'leading thought' because it means they will select their material according to their thesis.
If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.
Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it.
Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.
Ultimately, there is no compromise. Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.
The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.
He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.
Every one who has a heart, however ignorant of architecture he may be, feels the transcendent beauty and poetry of the mediaeval churches.
[Adams] supposed that, except musicians, everyone thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore.
National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob, always demented and the second a king, generally sane.
Only remember this: to seek justice is a good and noble thing, to seek revenge out of hatred is something that will devour your very soul.
All of us have mortal bodies, composed of perishable matter, but the soul lives forever: it is a portion of the Deity housed in our bodies
The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.
The British press has an insatiable appetite for making public things that should be private. It's a prurience that I've never understood.
It has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain as fame or power not founded on its own strength.
We Americans love to cite the 'political spectrum' as the best way to classify ideologies. The metaphor is incorrect: it implies symmetry.
The reality is that China is a much stronger power today, because the economic dimension has been added to the military and strategic one.
...knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.
After 1945 what happened was rather the opposite: with one major exception boundaries stayed broadly intact and people were moved instead.
In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.
Fashion is a part of the world and part of history. It's not a meaningless swirl of meaningless clothes. They (clothes) reflect the times.
If I talk to rural people where I live - mostly Hispanic but also poor white - they're not sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Turkey is using the Islamic State in the same way as Pakistan used the Taliban in Afghanistan. You know, that's perhaps Turkey's strategy.
Organizing is always a relationship between the person who arrives and says 'Let's meet together' and the person who comes to the meeting.
There may often be excuse for doing things poorly in this world, but there is never any excuse for calling a poorly done thing, well done.
I am impressed by how much of my grandparent's life depended on continuities, contacts, connections, friendships, and blood relationships.
In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.
By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.
Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.
Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.
Drugs are merely the most obvious form of addiction in our society. Drug addiction is one of the things that undermines traditional values.