You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.
—John Updike
Sir Francis Drake circumcized the world with a hundred-foot clipper.
—Unknown history student
History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. . . . I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good-for-nothing, and hardly any women at all.
—Jane Austen
If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it.
—Norman Thomas
There is . . . a trait no other nation seems to possess in quite the same degree that we do — namely, a feeling of almost childish injury and resentment unless the world as a whole recognizes how innocent we are of anything but the most generous and harmless intentions.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Very little is known about the War of 1812 because the Americans lost it.
—Eric Nicol
In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know, that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they actually change their minds, and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
—Carl Sagan
Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.
—African proverb
A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing things men have always done. If a war story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.
—Tim O'Brien
I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers, the story is called history. Before their arrival, it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography. After the soldiers arrive, it is called history.
—Judy Grahn
There is no history of mankind; there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But . . . the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder. . . . This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes.
—Karl Popper
Where are we really going? Always home!
—Novalis
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
—Edward Abbey
Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!
—Henri Frederic Amiel
If a place is in your blood, you leave it at your peril. You will never be happy anywhere else.
—Caroline Llewellyn