History Of The World Best Quotes & Sayings

We're going to make him the best military commander in history. And then put the fate of the world on his shoulders. — Orson Scott Card

Here is Christianity. Whence came it? It is a force in the world, a prodigious force. It has revolutionized society. It has lifted man out of himself. It has changed the face of the world. There it lies, imbedded in more than eighteen centuries of human history; and history of no mean sort, the best record of the race. — Herrick Johnson

There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. — Oscar Wilde

The world is full of lots of people play acting and hurling stuff about, unconscious of the effects. And there are large group karmic things going on through history that none of us should ever take personally. Rushing about trying to rectify the sins of the past is not productive. The best you can do is to be present as the new you in the now, holding your light as a steady candle to add to the beam of calm and love now spreading to help wake more and more people up. Hopefully we will evolve as a species to eventually cease the unnecessary conflict between different groups of ourselves. — Jay Woodman

Andrew Vachss, the best noir-ey writer in the history of the genre, called cats the lap dancers of the animal world. Give them attention, they're there. Stop, they're outta there. — MaryJanice Davidson

Of course Overlord did not fail. How could it? With some many fine young men and women from all corners of the earth all determined to do their best to free a world gone half mad. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The way I see it, Messi is the best player in history. He is the one who changes the course of games; he's the best. There is no comparison in my view; he's the world number one and by a margin. — Xavi

But history will judge you, and as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, in the extent to which you have used your gifts and talents to lighten and enrich the lives of your fellow men. In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfillment of the best qualities of your own spirit. — Robert Kennedy

The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort
"happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering. — Oswald Spengler

[London is] one of the best cities in the world. There is just so much culture there and so much history and so much diversity. It's just a perfect place to grow up. I studied at the Guildhall every Saturday so I'd always be in town every weekend doing that. I was kind of a city boy really. — Douglas Booth

Satan laughed his unkind laugh to a finish; then he said: It is a remarkable progress. In five or six thousand years five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disappeared; and not one of them except the latest ever invented any sweeping and adequate way to kill people. They all did their best
to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the earliest incident in its history
but only the Christian civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two or three centuries from now it will be recognized that all the competent killers are Christians; then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian
not to acquire his religion, but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy those to kill missionaries and converts with. — Mark Twain

And he would say, "Y'all come when you can," which was of no substantial pith or import, but then he would add, "Be particular." Except he pronounced it "p'ticklar." Be particular. That is, without a doubt, the Best Advice Ever Given in the History of the Entire World. — Jill Conner Browne

I believe that democracies do not go to war; that's the lesson of history, and I think that a democratic Pakistan is the world community's best guarantee of stability in Asia. — Benazir Bhutto

And I realized that this is what it's like to be an adult, learning to pick from a lot of bad choices and do the best you can with that dreadful compromise. Learning to smile, to put your best foot forward, when the world around you seems to have collapsed in its entirety, become a place of isolation, a sepia photograph of its former illusion. — Jennifer Ryan

The best players in the world are playing to make history. There are only four tournaments you can win to make history, and TPC (The Players Championship) is not one of them. And neither are those world events. And you're not going to make history winning some kind of FedEx Cup. — Paul Azinger

But I cannot accept a vision of You as an engineer who spends His days maintaining the machine of morality. I cannot take the idea of You as an optimizer, introducing evil into human affairs in an attempt to create the best of all possible worlds. I cannot bear this cold mathematician's God who sees all the universe as nothing more than an elaborate problem to be solved. Such a world is a world with no meaning, one in which one history is no more or less preferable to any other. — Dexter Palmer

In so many ways, the same impulse to know the world and our place in it is at the roots of both science and spirituality. Both are attempts to illuminate the mysteries of our world and expand our vision of the greater whole. By charting the history of science, I hope these pages have shown how vital and awesome real science is. Throughout history, scientific discovery has brought us closer to the wonders of life and the universe - and immeasurably deepened our appreciation for creation. It engages the world and inspires the best in us. But the pursuit of truth should not be driven by zealous agenda. Nor should it overreach and speak with righteous authority where it's on unsolid ground. That's not science - and let's not allow those who falsely invoke its name to diminish us. — Amir D. Aczel

Young people - with their dynamism, their energy and their inherent understanding of our interconnected world - have much to teach us. Increased educational attainment, advances in technology and the spread of information have made this generation the best educated, most connected and most informed in history — Kofi Annan

Kim Newman's Anno Dracula is back in print, and we must celebrate. It was the first mash-up of literature, history and vampires, and now, in a world in which vampires are everywhere, it's still the best, and its bite is just as sharp. Compulsory reading, commentary, and mindgame: glorious. — Neil Gaiman

Like everyone in the history of the world who has had a crush on his or her best friend, I was too scared to tell her, because if I did I might lose her completely. And the sharp bite of losing her completely would be far worse than the one-sided romantic arrangement we had going. — Josh Sundquist

Be particular. That is, without a doubt, the Best Advice Ever Given in the History of the Entire World. Consider, if you will, the profound effect that following that advice would have on, say, your diet, your love life, your financial situation, your decision on whether to have that next drink. I mean, what do those two words not cover? — Jill Conner Browne

An acquaintanceship with the literature of the world may be won by any person who will devote half an hour a day to the careful reading of the best books. The habit of reading good books is one that gives great comfort in all the stages and among all the vicissitudes of life. The man who has learned to love good reading is never alone. His friends are the great ones of human history, and to them he may always go for stimulating and helpful communion.
GQ 71 (GQ is A Guide for Quorums of the Melchizedek Priesthood, 3rd Edition, 1930) — John Andreas Widtsoe

Once, when I was a child, I dreamed that Grimbeard the Ghastly, on the deck of his ship The Endless Journey, threw the sword Endeavor up into the air. Up and up it spun, through the inky blackness, across the cavernous span of a hundred years, until, entirely of its own accord, my own left hand sprang out of space and stars and never-ending time and caught it. Now that I am so very old, I am dreaming once again. And in my dream, I am the one throwing the sword. It is spinning now, in the black starlit waters of my dream, right above your head, dear reader. A sword that may look second-best, and secondhand, but but carries the memories of a thousand lost fights, a history lesson in itself. Reach out, and catch it by the hilt. Swear by its name, Endeavor, to do your utmost to make the world a better place than when you arrived in it. For look! There will be dragons all around you, as camouflaged as a Stealth Dragon. — Cressida Cowell

One of the best moments is right here (during History Tour in Copenhagen, on his birthday in 1997). Right here. It's right in the middle of the show and it's my birthday and I'm thousands of miles away from my family. When they surprised me with the full marching band and then they brought out this huge, beautiful birthday cake.. I realized that I've got family all over the world. Everywhere I go, because my fans really show me the love and I love them just as much. — Michael Jackson

It's amazing to be a Puerto Rican fighter, we have a great history of fighters. I say this all the time, 'I'm Puerto Rican, raised in Philadelphia so I got the best of both worlds. I got the Puerto Rican power and the Philly toughness. It comes a long way. — Danny Garcia

Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens. — Andrew Jackson

The best blended Scotch in the history of the world - which was also the favourite drink of the Iraqi Baath Party, as it still is of the Palestinian Authority and the Libyan dictatorship and large branches of the Saudi Arabian royal family - is Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast of champions, accept no substitute. — Christopher Hitchens

The machinery of compulsory equalization works against the finest trait of the human species, the fact that we recognize ourselves in our differences and build links based on them. The best of the world lies in the many worlds the world contains, the different melodies of life, their pains and strains: the thousand and one ways of living and speaking, thinking and creating, eating, working, dancing, playing, loving, suffering, and celebrating that we have discovered over so many thousands of years. Equalization, which makes us all goofy and all the same, can't be measured. No computer could count the crimes that the pop culture business commits each day against the human rainbow and the human right to identity. But its devastating progress is mind-boggling. Time is emptied of history, and space no longer acknowledges the astonishing diversity of its parts. Through the mass media the owners of the world inform us all of our obligation to look at ourselves in a single mirror. — Eduardo Galeano

I would sum up the German character best by saying that they are the best of losers and the worst of winners. — Edmund Ironside

Most of us are not really so arrogant as to think we have a right to remold the world in our image. The best we can do, toward redeeming the states of Europe and Asia from the menace of revolution and the distresses of our time, is to realize our own conservative character, suspicious of doctrinaire alteration, respectful toward history, preferring variety over uniformity, acknowledging a moral order composed of human persons, not of mere political and economic atoms subservient to the state. We have not been appointed the correctors of mankind; but, under God, we may be an example to mankind. — Russell Kirk

Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and not just those in power; to contemplate
with the best teachers
the insights, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history. They allow people long dead to talk inside our heads. Books can accompany us everywhere. Books are patient where we are slow to understand, allow us to go over the hard parts as many times as we wish, and are never critical of our lapses. Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society. — Carl Sagan

It was the best first kiss in the history of first kisses. It was as sweet as sugar. And it was warm, as warm as pie. The whole world opened up and I fell inside. I don't know where I was, but I didn't care. I didn't care because the only person who mattered was there with me. — Sarah Addison Allen

I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. — James Baldwin

We've just lost our way, that's all. But what if you could give us a chance to do better? Just one chance? One single move in the great game of history? What's your best shot? What would you consider to be the greatest mistake in world history and, more to the point, what single thing would you do to prevent it? — Ben Elton

Delvig's best poem is the one he dedicated to Pushkin, his schoolmate, in January 1815. A boy of sixteen, prophesying in exact detail literary immortality to a boy of fifteen, and doing it in a poem that is itself immortal - this is a combination of intuitive genius and actual destiny to which I can find no parallel in the history of world poetry. — Vladimir Nabokov

Rooney is one of the best players in the world and I love watching him play. But if you had to pick out only one, then for their history and for all that they have achieved it would have to be Paul Scholes or Ryan Giggs. They are two shining examples for any player. — Andres Iniesta

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last. — John F. Kennedy

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. — Atul Gawande

Never before has man had such a great capacity to control his own environment, to end hunger, poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and human misery. We have the power to make the best generation of mankind in the history of the world. — John F. Kennedy

I meant it," he says.
"You meant what?"
"What I said in your apartment."
"You did?"
He nods.
We drop our cloths on the ground and hug each other. The path and the mountains and the entire world seem to slip away beneath us until only he and I remain. Then the sun rises over the peaks and warms my naked back. Of all the birthday gifts ever given in the history of the world, I can't imagine one better than an embrace like this from your best friend. — Ryan Winfield

To those who fought World War II, it was plain enough that Allied bombs were killing huge numbers of German civilians, that Churchill was fighting to preserve imperialism as well as democracy, and that the bulk of the dying in Europe was being done by the Red Army at the service of Stalin. It is only in retrospect that we begin to simplify experience into myth - because we need stories to live by, because we want to honor our ancestors and our country instead of doubting them. In this way, a necessary but terrible war is simplified into a "good war," and we start to feel shy or guilty at any reminder of the moral compromises and outright betrayals that are inseparable from every combat. The best history writing reverses this process, restoring complexity to our sense of the past. — Adam Kirsch

...I believe that nothing that once was can be completely undone. Even if destroyed in the material world and forgotten by men, it remains and will remain alive in the memory of an infinite being for which the past as well as the future is always present, and that is thus the greatest, the only true historian, and the keeper of the eternal tradition of which even our best human traditions ...are but shadows and images. — Paul Oskar Kristeller

In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot enter the twenty-first century at each other's throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation
and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. — Cornel West

This was the history of the world. Recovery and collapse, despair and relief. The dialectic of clean and dirty. Every time is worse than the time before. The bad things come, days and nights and days and nights get so unbelievably fucked up, unbelievably fast, but in the end
if there is an end
everybody's best self just slogs forward, one stagger, one fall, one day, one 'what the fuck just happened?' moment of oblivion and soul-broken joy at a time. All we have to do is not die. — Jerry Stahl

Answer to Job : 601 was an anticipation in the grand manner, but everything still hung in mid air as mere revelation that never came down to earth. In view of these facts one cannot, with the best will in the world, see how Christianity, as we hear over and over again, is supposed to have burst upon world history as an absolute novelty. If ever anything had been historically prepared, and sustained and supported by the existing Weltanschauung, Christianity would be a classic example. XII — C. G. Jung

The key thing is managed awareness of your role in the world and history. Think too much and you know you are nothing. Think just enough and you know you are small, but important to some. That's the best you can do. — Dave Eggers

What is an obsession? It is a form of programming that has gotten completely out of hand. Religious fanatics are a prime example, as are those people who become enveloped in a political concept. Most of man's progress has come about as a result of obsessions. The Wright brothers were not just tinkerers with an idea; their idea swallowed them up. Most leaders are obsessed with power or possessed by egos so large their only concern is their place in history. I have known writers obsessed with a single subject. Like Bobby Fischer and chess, anything and everything outside their subject seems meaningless. Any art form - music, painting, dance - is done best by those who are completely possessed by it. Such possession often borders on madness. This world would be a sorry place without such madmen. — John A. Keel

The history of this paper suggests that highly speculative investigations, especially by an unknown author, are best brought before the world through some other channel than a scientific society, which naturally hesitates to admit into its printed records matters of uncertain value. Perhaps one may go further and say that a young author who believes himself capable of great things would usually do well to secure the favourable recognition of the scientific world by work whose scope is limited and whose value is easily judged, before embarking upon higher flights. — John William Strutt

We are off! And do we know it, not just because the world is yelling "Lift-off" in our ears, but because the seats of our pants tell us so! Trust your instruments, not your body, the modern pilot is always told, but this beast is best felt. Shake, rattle and roll! — Michael Collins

One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally rank among the best organized and most coherent groupings in society. They constitute ready-made organizations - social-based NGOs, if you will - for maintaining Islamic culture and practices under periods of extreme oppression and for fomenting resistance and guerrilla warfare against foreign occupation. The history of Sufi participation in dozens of liberation struggles is long and widespread across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Sufi groups were prominent in the anti-Soviet resistance, and later against the American in Afghanistan and against US occupation forces in Iraq. — Graham Fuller

Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to 'play God', the world as we know it wouldn't exist today. — Ramez Naam

Huzzah! Free Trade and Sailors' Rights! But instead American ships are captured and sailors impressed by the thousands into the British Navy, becoming slaves to the lash, while the United States has virtually no navy to back them up. Baltimore native, Nathan Jeffries, son of an American hero, Captain William Jeffries, and his Quaker wife, Amy, is haunted by the memories of his fiancee, his best friend, his enemy's woman and his betrayal. Chesapeake Bay is no refuge aboard his father's brig Bucephalus;facing his worst fears, he is chased and captured by armed privateer schooner Scourge. In a violent world at war, Nathan must break his most solemn promise to his mother. For Nathan and the young United States, 1812 would severely challenge rights of passage. — Bert J. Hubinger

Books tap the wisdom of our species
the greatest minds, the best teachers
from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient. — Carl Sagan

He has demonstrated how the very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world ended up resulting in the very best thing that has ever happened in the history of the world." "What do you mean? "I'm referring to dei-cide," he replied. "The death of God himself on the cross. At the time, nobody saw how anything good could ever result from this tragedy. And yet God foresaw that the result would be the opening of heaven to human beings. So the worst tragedy in history brought about the most glorious event in history. And if it happened there - if the ultimate evil can result in the ultimate good - it can happen elsewhere, even in our own individual lives. Here, God lifts the curtain and lets us see it. Elsewhere he simply says, 'Trust me. — Lee Strobel

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque militants assassinated Adm. Carrero Blanco. The admiral was a stone-faced secret police chief, personally groomed to be the successor to the decrepit Francisco Franco. His car blew up, killing only him and his chauffeur with a carefully planted charge, and not only was the world well rid of another fascist, but, more important, the whole scheme of extending Franco's rule was vaporized in the same instant. The dictator had to turn instead to Crown Prince Juan Carlos, who turned out to be the best Bourbon in history and who swiftly dismantled Franco's entire system. If this action was 'terrorism,' it had something to be said for it. Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high. — Christopher Hitchens

Mitch
"
"All right, baby, I'll shut you up."
Then he did, his head slanting and his lips taking mine in a repeat performance of the open-mouthed, knock my socks off, rock my world, best kiss in the history of all time. — Kristen Ashley

Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, ... We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history or the world - or make it the last. — John F. Kennedy

Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimolous to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. — Thomas Pynchon

Like almost every truly horrible thing that has ever happened in the history of our world, the end also began with a kiss. — Dennis Sharpe

What I have always loved best about the history of the world is that it is true. That all the extraordinary things we read were no less real than you and I are today. — E.H. Gombrich

He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life. Let us now hear his teachings on who has the good life, on who is among the truly blessed. — Dallas Willard

For any exam in history, here is the answer: all human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities. — Ben Stein

They could do anything. That, however, was part of what made it difficult to bring [it] to a close. Infinite possibility was going to collapse, in the act of choosing, to the single world line of history. The future becoming the past: there was something disappointing in this passage through the loom, this so-sudden diminution from infinity to one, the collapse from potentiality to reality which was the action of time itself. The potential was so delicious - the way they could have, potentially, all the best parts of all...time, combined magically into some superb, as-yet-unseen synthesis - or throw all that aside, and finally strike a new path to the heart of just government. . . .To go from that to the mundane problematic...was an inevitable letdown, and instinctively people put it off. — Kim Stanley Robinson

If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us. — A.A. Gill

Since periods of great change, such as the present one, come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world. — Dalai Lama

What matters is the character of ... stereotypes, and the gullibility with which we employ them. And these in the end depend upon ... our philosophy of life. If in that philosophy we assume that the world is codified according to a code which we possess, we are likely to make our reports of what is going on describe a world run by our code. But if our philosophy tells us that each man is only a small part of the world, that his intelligence catches at best only phases and aspects in a coarse net of ideas, then, when we use our stereotypes, we tend to know that they are only stereotypes, to hold them lightly, to modify them gladly. We tend, also, to realize more and more clearly when our ideas started, where they started, how they came to us, why we accepted them. All useful history is antiseptic in this fashion. It enables us to know what fairy tale, what school book, what tradition, what novel, play, picture, phrase, planted one preconception in this mind, another in that mind. — Walter Lippmann

Since I was a kid. I had this series by Ballantine Books about the history of World Wars I and II. In my 20s, it was the Vietnam War literature of novelists like Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, and Tobias Wolff, and then nonfiction such as "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan and "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam . Those are the two best histories of Vietnam. — George Packer

I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love. It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigor of the earlier world? — William Morris

It is my fault, and the fault of everyone of my generation. I wonder what the future generations will say about us. My grandparents suffered through the Depression, World War II, then came home to build the greatest middle class in human history. Lord knows they weren't perfect, but they sure came closest to the American dream. Then my parents' generation came along and f***ed it all up - the baby boomers, the "me" generation. And then you got us. Yeah, we stopped the Zombie menace, but we're the ones who let it become a menace in the first place. At least we're cleaning up our own mess, and maybe that's the best epitaph to hope for. 'Generation Z, they cleaned up their own mess. — Max Brooks

I joined a gym recently. I don't have the best history in the world of sticking with my fitness regimens, but I feel like this time's gonna be different. I figure one of two things is gonna happen: either I'll get into shape, or I'll just resign myself to paying an $85 a month fat tax. — Christian Finnegan

That man sitting on the steps made me understand that I was important to the world and to the history of my country. I felt necessary, and that's the best feeling a human being can have. — Paulo Coelho

The solution which I am urging is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is LIfe in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children
Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in the midst of living it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a world, and has not yet determined how to put it together — Alfred North Whitehead

Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit. — Matthew Arnold

Is that "great cloud of witnesses" watching my way so as to judge or is it informing my way so that I may walk it? Do they hide the light so that I cannot see it or do they filter it so that its blaze will not blind me? Can a man see God face to face and live? Can I not see an eclipse better through a pinhole in a paper than without it?
We can't so much see light as we can see things because of it. So I do not meet God in a vacuum
I meet Him in the world He has provided for me to meet Him in
in a world of events and of places, of history (time and space), in a world of lives of people and their records of their encounters. I meet God in this world
in the world of these things ...
... and this is the world as best as I can remember it. — Rich Mullins

Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research. And when you see that you've got problems, all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours. And once you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight. — Malcolm X

Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of this time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world's most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology. — Walter Isaacson

This is the best day in the history of the world, even though yesterday that seemed an impossibility. — Jack Kent Cooke

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
Polonius — William Shakespeare

The year is now 1774. Poseurs or not, it is time to grow up. It is time to enter the public realm, the world of public acts and public attitudes. Everything that happens now will happen in the light of history. It is not a midday luminary, but a corpse-candle to the intellect; at best, it is a secondhand lunar light, error-breeding, sand-blind and parched.

Camille Desmoulins, 1793: "They think that gaining freedom is like growing up: you have to suffer."

Maximilien Robespierre, 1793: "History is fiction. — Hilary Mantel

The year now is 1774. Poseurs or not, it is time to grow up. It is time to enter the public realm, the world of public acts and public attitudes. Everything that happens now will happen in the light of history. It is not a midday luminary, but a corpse-candle to the intellect; at best, it is a secondhand lunar light, error-breeding, sand-blind and parched. — Hilary Mantel

But now, where the spirit of the Western nationalism prevails, the whole people is being taught from boyhood to foster hatreds and ambitions by all kinds of means - by the manufacture of half-truths and untruths in history, by persistent misrepresentation of other races and the culture of unfavourable sentiments towards them, by setting up memorials of events, very often false, which for the sake of humanity should be speedily forgotten, thus continually brewing evil menace towards neighbours and nations other than their own. This is poisoning the very fountainhead of humanity. It is discrediting the ideals, which were born of the lives of men who were our greatest and best. It is holding up gigantic selfishness as the one universal religion for all nations of the world. — Rabindranath Tagore

I've had the best history teachers of the world,
you know.
Now, I am the best.
Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Religion Of Blue Circle
October 28, 2016 — Petra Hermans

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done ... With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means ... The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought that takes success for its standard. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Certainly human culture may have achieved great progress in the course of history. Suffering and unhappiness in the human world, however, do not seem to have decreased. The present situation of our world is so full of poverty, distrust, diseases, strife, that there seems to be no end. Hundreds and thousands of great men admired as saints and sages have appeared in the world in the past, and they have devoted their lives for the betterment of the world. Human suffering and unhappiness, however, do not seem to have decreased or ended. Over and over again they repeatedly, thanklessly endeavoured to fill up the well with snow. The true life of Zen is found here, when we all become true Great Fools and calmly and nonchalantly keep on doing our best, realizing well that our efforts will never be rewarded. — Zenkei Shibayama

It would be best if this obscure chapter in the history of the world were terminated at once, if these ugly people were obliterated from the face of the earth and we swore to make a new start, to run an empire in which there would be no more injustice, no more pain. — J.M. Coetzee

You tend to think that your time is either the best or the worst, and then when you have a sense of history, you'll realize actually, no, there were times things were quite gusty in the world. I mean, just think, nowadays most people will say they support the advancement of women, woman has been equal, the fact that we're so aware of the gustiness, in a sense, also speaks about the heightening of our own sensitivity. — Desmond Tutu