100 Century Quotes & Sayings

Scholars and historians have dubbed the last 100 years the American Century, and I think there can be little doubt that the Council on Foreign Relations helped to make it so. — Spencer Abraham

Ring around the rosie.
A pocket full of posie.
Ashes ashes, we all fall down.
Some people say that this poem is about the Black Death, the fourteenth-century plague that killed 100-million people ...
Sadly, though, most experts think this is nonsense ...
How can I be so sure about this rhyme when all the experts disagree?
Because I ate the kid who made it up. — Scott Westerfeld

When Edward Gibbon was writing about the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th century, he could argue that transportation hadn't changed since ancient times. An imperial messenger on the Roman roads could get from Rome to London even faster in A.D. 100 than in 1750. But by 1850, and even more obviously today, all of that has changed. — Walter Russell Mead

Whether the result of wear, tear, and exhaustion of resources or whether genetically programmed, all life has a finite span and each species has its own particular longevity. For human beings, this would appear to be approximately 100 to 110 years. This means that even were it possible to prevent or cure every disease that carries people off before the ravages of senescence do, virtually no one would live beyond a century or a bit more. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Yet we flatter our strength unduly when we compare it even to a reed stick! For whatever vain men devise and babble concerning these matters is but smoke. Therefore Augustine with good reason often repeats the famous statement that free will is by its defenders more trampled down than strengthened. — John Calvin

The 'size' of science has doubled steadily every 15 years. In a century this means a factor of 100. For every single scientific paper or for every single scientist in 1670, there were 100 in 1770, 10,000 in 1870 and 1,000,000 in 1970. — John Ziman

Mary has been the most popular girl's name in the last 100 years, with 3.6 million babies given the name since 1913. For boys, James reigns, with 4.9 million namesakes in the last century. — Emily Larson

Socialism's results have ranged between the merely shabby and the truly catastrophic - poverty, strife, oppression and, on the killing fields of communism, the deaths this century of perhaps 100 million people. Against that doctrine was set a contrary, conservative belief in a law-governed liberty. It was this view which triumphed with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Since then, the Left has sought rehabilitation by distancing itself from its past. — Margaret Thatcher

So many able historians have worked over seventeenth-century New England that one would think there was little left to be learned from the people who lived there - fewer than 100,000 at the end of the century. Seldom, apart perhaps from the Greeks and Romans, have so few been studied by so many. — Edmund Morgan

We all shared an admiration of Debussy both as a musician and as sort of an icon for the 20th century. It seemed like an interesting idea to go right back 100 years to find the source of some new ideas now. — Anne Dudley

So, we've gone from covered wagons to going to the moon in just under 100 years. For all the centuries and thousands of years before us, people walked or rode horses, cows, camels or whatever. This so-called modern era, from the late 19th century through now, has been the period of the most amazing development, discovery, innovation and acceleration of change that humans have ever experienced. And it hasn't slowed down yet. — Edgar Mitchell

I also came across the word neoteny, which means "remaining young." It's something which we as humans have developed into a survival trait. Other animals, when they are young, have a curiosity about the world, a flexibility of response, and an ability to play which they lose as they grow up. As a species we have retained it. As a species, we are forever sticking our fingers into the electric socket of the universe to see what will happen next. It is a trait that will either save us or kill us, but it is what makes us human beings. I would rather be in the company of people who look at Mars than people who contemplate humanity's navel - other worlds are better than fluff. — Anonymous

My eyes open to 2 eyes 2 lips 2 ears 2 eyebrows. I stifle my scream my urgency to run the crippling horror gripping my limbs. "You're a b-b-b-b - ""And you're a girl. — Tahereh Mafi

During the twentieth century, communist governments killed some 100 million of their own people in peacetime, either by repression or by famine. — Charles Wheelan

The silence was like an unwelcome child, pulling at our hair, running its fingers over our lips. — Kat Zhang

since the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve almost a century ago, we have printed roughly $800 billion from 1913 to 2007. But in 2013, the Fed printed more new money than that in just one year (see Figure 1.1) and will likely do the same in 2014. That's more money printing in one year than in nearly 100 years! — Robert A. Wiedemer

Wishful thinking does wonders for a wishful mind; but in the end, reality always has the final say. — Steve Maraboli

Know that you are loved and you are able." -Gillamon — Jenny L. Cote

I remember as a ranger the first time I stood alone on Inspiration Point over at Canyon Station looking out over this beautiful land. I thought to myself how lucky I was that my parents' and grandparents' generation had the vision and the determination to save it for us. Now it is our turn to make our own gift outright to those who will come after us, 15 years, 40 years, 100 years from now. I want to be as faithful to my grandchildren's generation as Old Faithful has been to ours. What better way can we add a new dimension to our third century of freedom? — Gerald R. Ford

An idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell. Let him be disillusioned and behold! - he will embrace this disillusionment just as fervently as a little while before he embraced his hopes. Insofar as his tendency is among the great incurable tendencies of human nature he is able to give rise to tragic destinies and afterwards become the subject of tragedies: for tragedies have to do with precisely what is incurable, ineluctable, inescapable in the fate and character of man. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The telephone is a 100-year-old technology. It's time for a change. Charging for phone calls is something you did last century. — Niklas Zennstrom

In my experience, copy editors, like the stalwart staff I've worked with and learned from in my 34 years at 'TIME,' are linguistic conservatives - the keepers of the flame ignited by the Strunk-White 'Elements of Style,' published in full in 1957 and chosen by 'TIME' as one of the 100 most influential nonfiction books of the past century. — Richard Corliss

In the case of a Gascon seigneur of the 14th century who left 100 livres to those whom I deflowered, if they can be found. — Barbara W. Tuchman

During the twentieth century, neuroscientists and psychologists also came to more fully appreciate the astounding complexity of the human brain. Inside our skulls, they discovered, are some 100 billion neurons, which take many different shapes and range in length from a few tenths of a millimeter to a few feet.4 A single neuron typically has many dendrites (though only one axon), and dendrites and axons can have a multitude of branches and synaptic terminals. The average neuron makes about a thousand synaptic connections, and some neurons can make a hundred times that number. — Nicholas Carr

Yes, business really does change. 400 years ago, corporations were formed by royal decree. 300 years ago, many countries were powered by slave labour, or its closest moral equivalent. 200 years ago, debtors didn't go bankrupt, they went to prison. 100 years ago - well, business is largely the same as it was a century ago. And that's exactly the problem. Business hasn't changed, but today's array of tectonic global shocks demands a different, radically better kind of business. Yesterday's corporations visibly cannot meet today's economic challenges. — Umair Haque

Fact is, the first 100 years of our country's history were about who could build the biggest, most efficient farm. And the second century focused on the race to build factories. Welcome to the third century, folks. The third century is about ideas. — Seth Godin

The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century. — Stephen Hawking

It is fascinating that Baghdad had more than 100 public libraries in the year 891, Cordoba had 70 public libraries at the end of 10th century, while the royal library of Caliph al-'Aziz, in the year 988, of the Fatimids in Cairo perhaps had more than 100,000 volumes collection arranged in classified order. — Balqis Suja'

ONE OF THE first things the Nazis did was to distribute 100,000 free radio sets to the Austrian Christians. Where did they get these radios? From us, of course. Right after the Anschluss, the Jews were required to turn in their typewriters and their radios, the idea being that if we could not communicate with each other or the outside world, we would be isolated and more easily terrorized and manipulated. It was a good idea. It worked well. — Edith Hahn Beer

I don't think there should be anything that women are embarrassed to talk about in the 21st century, because for the last 100,000 years, men have said everything that's on their minds and described everything they have done. — Caitlin Moran

When there is a start to be made, don't step over! Start where you are. — Edgar Cayce

This (Coley's toxins) is really an effective treatment and it an OUTRAGEOUS crime of the century that we at MSK were able to cure cancer a 100 years ago that they can't cure today. — Ralph W. Moss

The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, it's hard to consider the environment 100 years down the line. — Bjorn Lomborg

Together, these three gospels - Mark, Matthew, and Luke - became known as the Synoptics (Greek for "viewed together") because they more or less present a common narrative and chronology about the life and ministry of Jesus, one that is greatly at odds with the fourth gospel, John, which was likely written soon after the close of the first century, between 100 and 120 C.E. — Reza Aslan

Manchester has it's own pride and London has it's sort of pride and sometimes we can be a bit mean to each other, but I think if we dig the music we can get on really well. — Graham Coxon