Quotes & Sayings About Lessons Of History

I feel a deep need to listen to the remnants of history's saddest songs, to keep their mournful melody alive on my lips and in my heart. My psyche craves the lessons humanity's blood-rusted fissures have to carve into my soul, and maybe, just maybe, if I soak up enough of them, one day I will begin to make sense of today's ongoing global hostilities. — Randy Blythe

The cry: Audacity! is a Fiat lux. It is necessary, for the sake of the forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and are one of man's great sources of light. The dawn dares when it rises. To attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to insult drunken victory, to hold one's position, to stand one's ground; that is the example which nations need, that is the light which electrifies them. The same formidable lightning proceeds from the torch of Prometheus to Cambronne's short pipe. — Victor Hugo

The answer to all questions of human society is in the lessons of human history, which are revealed in the Bible. — Sunday Adelaja

You have no power over your past,
but you do over your present.
You have no power over your history,
but you do over your future.
You have no power over your fortune,
but you do over your actions.
You have no power over your reputation,
but you do over your character.
You have no power over destiny,
but you do over yourself.
You have no power over anyone,
but you do over your world. — Matshona Dhliwayo

If history teaches us any lessons at all, it teaches us that force applied to religion creates not a purity of faith but a river of blood. — Edwin Gaustad

All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess. Look, being a lame flunky for a batshit crazy person isn't all that bad. Stay alive long enough and you may sneak your way to Washington! — Martin Van Buren

If we suppose a sufficient righteousness and intelligence in men to produce presently, from the tremendous lessons of history, an effective will for a world peace
that is to say, an effective will for a world law under a world government
for in no other fashion is a secure world peace conceivable
in what manner may we expect things to move towards this end? ... It is an educational task, and its very essence is to bring to the minds of all men everywhere, as a necessary basis for world cooperation, a new telling and interpretation, a common interpretation, of history. — H.G.Wells

The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.
To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The lessons of history teach us - if the lessons of history teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us. — Robert A. Heinlein

I have the better right to indulgence herein, because my devotion to letters strengthens my oratorical powers, and these, such as they are, have never failed my friends in their hour of peril. Yet insignificant though these powers may seem to be, I fully realize from what source I draw all that is highest in them. Had I not persuaded myself from my youth up, thanks to the moral lessons derived from a wide reading, that nothing is to be greatly sought after in this life save glory and honour, and that in their quest all bodily pains and all dangers of death or exile should be lightly accounted, I should never have borne for the safety of you all the burnt of many a bitter encounter, or bared my breast to the daily onsets of abandoned persons. All literature, all philosophy, all history, abounds with incentives to noble action, incentives which would be buried in black darkness were the light of the written word not flashed upon them. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

But that Herschel, for example, who "broke the barriers of the heavens" - did he not once play a provincial church-organ, and give music-lessons to stumbling pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk on the earth among neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his gait and his garments than of anything which was to give him a title to everlasting fame: each of them had his little local personal history sprinkled with small temptations and sordid cares, which made the retarding friction of his course towards final companionship with the immortals. — George Eliot

Below, we itemize some of the quite different lessons investors seem to have learned as of late 2009 - false lessons, we believe. To not only learn but also effectively implement investment lessons requires a disciplined, often contrary, and long-term-oriented investment approach. It requires a resolute focus on risk aversion rather than maximizing immediate returns, as well as an understanding of history, a sense of financial market cycles, and, at times, extraordinary patience. — Seth Klarman

The mistake we all make is in assuming anybody remembers anydamnthing from one day to the next. If that were true, we'd stop getting involved with approximately the same kind of wrong lover each time, we'd learn the lessons of history, the death penalty would discourage those plotting murder, and George Santayana's famous quote would be about as popular as "the bee's knees." But few of us keep accurate records of what we've learned as we hobble through life barking our shins in the dark on experiences we've already had ... — Harlan Ellison

The beauty of history is that it can be altered by changing ones perspective. If the interpretation varies so does the impact. Free will is the governor. — Truth Devour

He, who fails to acknowledge and appreciate the real courage of our fathers, fails to appreciate the real lessons that the courage of our fathers teaches us today! The courage and the wisdom that propelled our fathers to move unrelentingly in their days must be nothing to us, but, a real reason for us to be more than courageous enough to do the undone distinctively in our days. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

...one may easily define two diametrically opposed lessons to be drawn from Jewish history: one holds that the memory of Jewish suffering should lead to a humanistic, universalist approach emphasizing the dangers of intolerance and racism; this is the lesson embodied in the repeated historical reminders that the Jews were brought 'out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,' and that consequently, they were enjoined, 'love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.'"

"The other lesson seeks revenge for past sufferings, and beckons the Jews, now that they have their state, to hunt with the wolves and - invoking the injunction to remember the Amalekites - seeks to apply rules of exclusiveness laid down in totally different circumstances. — Amnon Rubinstein

History is the heritage and patrimony of mankind in its lessons of the past that give priceless inspiration for the future. — Henry Clausen

It is not my purpose here to document the destruction caused by war [...] The point is to ask ourselves why these accounts have not had greater effect. [...] Why is it that many of us are deeply moved by visual art, fiction, and firsthand accounts of destruction and yet accept war as a means of resolving conflict or defending ourselves? — Nel Noddings

Nearly everything that happened had happened before. The grand lesson of history. — Brandon Sanderson

The saying goes that history repeats itself; personal histories do the same. We can gather the lessons of others' lives through observation, conversation, and by seeking advice. We can use the automatic system to find out who the happy people are, and the reflective system to evaluate how they got to be that way. Pursuing happiness need not be a lonely endeavor. In fact, throwing in our lot with others may be a very good way of coping with the disappointments of choice. — Sheena Iyengar

I try to be even-handed and fair-minded about my view of history. I don't romanticize one side and demonize the other, though I do think that if you're suffering a lot, especially in the Bob Marley sense, suffering becomes a kind of university out of which you'll learn some hard lessons. — Fred D'Aguiar

The lessons of past is critical for teachings in present. And experience in the future. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Every woman should have a daughter to tell her stories to. Otherwise, the lessons learned are as useless as spare buttons from a discarded shirt. And all that is left is a fading name and the shape of a nose or the color of hair. The men who write the history books will tell you the stories of battles and conquests. But the women will tell you the stories of people's hearts. — Karen White

The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. — Ariel Durant

The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning. — George F. Kennan

I'm a big fan of history - applying the lessons as well as the joys and sadness. If we pay attention, we would see how we affect each other. In terms of time, we are not that far from one another. If we were to look back a century, it would seem like a long time; but, if we look at it by decades then it's only 10 years, and by generations it's only five. — Nikki Giovanni

One of the enduring lessons of history is that whenever an empire becomes insular to 'protect' itself, intellectual decline and cultural intolerance are sure to follow. — Irshad Manji

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach. — Aldous Huxley

The greatest advances in human civilization have come when we
recovered what we had lost: when we learned the lessons of history. — Winston Churchill

If I had to guess, nephew, I would surmise that you are not in direct trouble as such. However, I will confess to the distinct and unsettling feeling that very large, very ponderous and most momentous wheels have been set in motion. When that happens I believe the lessons of history tend to indicate that it is best not to be in their way. Even without meaning harm, the workings and progress of such wheels are on a scale which inevitably reduces the worth of individual lives to an irrelevance at best. — Iain M. Banks

Youth. Murder (Biko). Slavery. Freedom. We are all creatures of ignorance at the end of the day. The natural order of the hierarchy of life states that we are creatures. Creatures of habit whether it is normal (following the status quo and all of that jazz). Creatures of marching orders and almost sanitary routine. Creatures of the abnormal. Our leaders are coldly obliterating the past. It is impossible to destroy nations, tribes, individuals without their permission. Many lessons learned from the past come to life like the connect the dots game of a child in a museum. We are swift to forget history. Bury the past like yesterday's newspaper, our infirm and elderly in nursing homes. — Abigail George

Science works through replication, rectification and modification. But when it comes to religion, people simply tend to accept the theoretical preachers and their claims of historical God experiences without a single question. If there has been one experience in this world in any branch of knowledge, it absolutely follows that that experience will be repeated eternally. If they are not repeated through natural processes, the thinking humanity would have no way but to disprove that such an experience ever occurred in the history. — Abhijit Naskar

The span of a man is three score and 10, or thereabouts. As most Americans are not especially keen on availing themselves of the lessons contained in 6,000 years of recorded history, we have a tendency to believe that the current status quo is pretty much how the world has been and how it will always be. — Theodore Beale

The community as a whole doesn't listen patiently to critics who adopt alternative viewpoints. Although the great lesson of history is that knowledge develops through the conflict of viewpoints. — Walter Gilbert

People are always quick to call evil what they do not know. The unknown sprouts fear. It spreads like an infection, burrowing into every facet of their lives. They need a scapegoat, someone to blame. Fingers are pointed, accusations are made, and a target lands on somebody's back. They grow angry. They turn violent.
To history, human nature must be a stubborn and tiring student. No matter how many times history tries to show it the error of its ways, it never learns from its mistakes. — Kelseyleigh Reber

Great cycles of history began with vigorous cultures awakening to the needs of children, but collapsing with frayed family ties. Have we failed to learn lessons which Ancient China, Greece and Rome learned too late - about day care and death houses for old folks? Do we without protest accept accelerating preschool and nursing home cultures which warn ominously that the earlier you institutionalize your child, the earlier he will institutionalize you! — Raymond S. Moore

Protectionism is a very real danger. It is understandable that in times of a severe downturn protectionist pressures mount but the lessons of history are clear. If we give in to protectionist pressures, we will only send the world into a downward spiral. — Manmohan Singh

In this shifting landscape, we may tend to forget "what the old folks say." Most of us probably now realize that our ancestors did indeed have it right! Their common-sense ways allowed them to get through the worst of conditions throughout history and still we thrive from their bold undertakings. — Deborah L. Parker

History has taught us that no society built upon the exploitation of any of its individuals can long endure — Kirsten Beyer

Time after time mankind is driven against the rocks of the horrid reality of a fallen creation. And time after time mankind must learn the hard lessons of history-the lessons that for some dangerous and awful reason we can't seem to keep in our collective memory. — Hilaire Belloc

I was reminded of our history lessons, in which we learned about the loot or bounty an army enjoys when a battle is won. I began to see the awards and recognition just like that. They were little jewels without much meaning. I needed to concentrate on winning the war. — Malala Yousafzai

The answers to all the questions of the society are in the lessons of human history. — Sunday Adelaja

It should be some kind of goal to be absolutely clear about your past experiences and have let them all go and accepted them in full. — Auliq Ice

Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the proper recipe, invariably designated the lesson of history. — Russell Baker

If you've just stared into the abyss, quickly forget it: the lessons of history can only hold you back. — Seth Klarman

Southerners, whose ancestors a hundred years ago knew the horrors of a homeland devastated by war, are particularly determined that war shall never come to us again. All Americans understand the basic lessons of history: that we need to be resolute and able to protect ourselves, to prevent threats and domination by others. — Jimmy Carter

Powers rise and fall. Leaders come and go. History makes a mockery of our best-laid plans, in the end, you aare left with thosecthings you have shared with one another — Kirsten Beyer

Every time we killed a thousand Bugs at a cost of one M.I. it was a net victory for the Bugs. We were learning, expensively, just how efficient a total communism can be when used by a people actually adapted to it by evolution; the Bug commisars didn't care any more about expending soldiers than we cared about expending ammo. Perhaps we could have figured this out about the Bugs by noting the grief the Chinese Hegemony gave the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance; however the trouble with 'lessons from history' is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our chins. — Robert A. Heinlein

I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say ... " They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision ... " They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold ... " But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe. — Sheri S. Tepper

In the years that I worked in museums, first as a summer student and eventually as a curator, one of the primary lessons I learned was this: History is shaped by the people who seek to preserve it. We, of the present, decide what to keep, what to put on display, what to put into storage, and what to discard. — Susanna Kearsley

Only by embracing the lessons embedded in our city's history can we avoid repeating the failed policies of both the recent and distant past, and have true clarity about what action is required to correct today's public policies. Recurring themes emerge throughout the history of New York City with regards to public policy. Even though the city has changed immensely, these themes are important for debating policy and giving us an informed perspective on how to move forward. — Ralph Da Costa Nunez

The Grid makes the history of architecture and all previous lessons of urbanism irrelevant. It forces Manhattan's builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another. The Grid's two-dimensional discipline also creates undreamt-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy. The Grid defines a new balance between control and de-control in which the city can be at the same time ordered and fluid, a metropolis of rigid chaos. — Rem Koolhaas

Over time, it is all too common for people to lose touch with their heritage, as the thrill and immediacy of the present crowds out the echoes and lessons of the past. It would be a shame if that were to happen with respect to the fur trade. It is a seminal part of who we are as a nation, and how we came to be. — Eric Jay Dolin

Another crucial thing to question is why deniers even bother to quibble about the number of deaths. If one day it were proven only five million or 5.5 million Jews were exterminated, would it be any less an atrocity? What number would deniers suggest is low enough to say that genocide didn't occur and that it's not important that humanity remembers the Holocaust and the lessons learnt? — James Morcan

Children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times - a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. Their lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive powers. If the children do not live in the times of his history lesson, be not at home in the climate his geography book describes, why, these lessons will fail of their purpose. — Charlotte Mason

Through the centuries, the history of peoples is but a lesson in mutual tolerance. — Emile Zola

Feminist narrative theory notes that for most of literary history there's been an imbalance between men's and women's stories. Male characters go out into a world of infinite possibilities. Female characters either get married or die. This makes enlightened female readers such as ourselves pissed off. But however much we deconstruct the narrative, however vigilantly we plow and apply the theory and read with our skeptical, over-educated eyes, still some lessons are hard to fully internalize, and the dream of happily-ever-after love, in real life and in literature, dies hardest of all. — Laurie Frankel

If I have nothing but a room full of books, it is enough for me to survive life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The great lesson of history for us is that strength and resolve bring peace and order, and weakness and vacillation invite chaos and conflict. — Rick Perry

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. — Carl Sagan

Will this generation be able to turn things around and learn a valuable lesson from all of this? I hope so, but I have my doubts. The damage has been done. And as a lifelong student of history, it's quite evident that human beings don't learn from the mistakes of past generations. — Aaron B. Powell

Those who ignore history's lessons in the ultimate folly of war are forced to do more than relive them ... they may be forced to die by them. — Dan Simmons

Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history. — A.J.P. Taylor

History's greatest lessons is that once the state embraces a religion, the nature of that religion changes radically. It loses its nonviolent component — Mark Kurlansky

The neglect of a generation is regeneration so every soul may become its own history, not the incessant anxiety of unnaturally imposed lessons, a plague of its own making. — Dew Platt

Everything has happened before - not once, but over and over again. We may not be able to solve our problems through what are pompously called "the lessons of history," but at least we should be able to recognize the issues and perhaps avoid some of the solutions that have failed in the past. And we can take heart in our own dilemma by realizing that other people in other times have survived worse. — Elizabeth Peters

Progress is man's indifference to the lessons of history. — Len Deighton

The Scripture was given to us to teach and to uplift. To provide a path to God. Occasionally a person fixates on a certain portion, a portion that many of us would consider narrative history
such as the book of Daniel. It is a record of Daniel's experience in exile, in the court of Babylon. We can see God's sovereignty over kings, in this case Nebuchadnezzar." Tate jingled the change in his pocket, unsure where Mitch was headed. "In addition to the historical aspects, there are spiritual lessons to be found within this portion of the Scripture
God's faithfulness to his people and his omnipotence." "But ... " "But when someone fixates on one portion versus the Scripture as a whole, confusion sets in. They pick and choose certain words and use them to justify almost any action." Tate hesitated, then asked, "Even murder?" "Especially murder. — Vannetta Chapman

History provides a sense of where we've been and lessons that can be taken forward. — Jim Leach

T's one of history's many valuable lessons: the foot soldiers tend to be the casualties in any conflict, not the generals. — Mark Mills

History lessons remind us that the states in which we live, their institutions, even their laws, have come to us through conflict, often of the most bloodthirsty sort. Our daily diet of news brings us reports of the shedding of blood, often in regions quite close to our homelands, in circumstances that deny our conception of cultural normality altogether. We succeed, all the same, in consigning the lessons both of history and of reportage to a special and separate category of "otherness" which invalidate our expectations of how our own world will be tomorrow and the day after not at all. Our institutions and our laws, we tell ourselves, have set the human potentiality for violence about with such restraints that violence in everyday life will be punished as criminal by our laws, while its use by our institutions of state will take the particular form of "civilised warfare. — Steven Pinker

What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy. — Margaret Thatcher

The first great skeptic of American exceptionalism, he refused to believe that the country was exempt from the sober lessons of history. — Ron Chernow

The lessons of the past suggest that racism and resentment against people of color will continue to flourish in America as long as the history that is taught transposes the heroes and the villains. That is the unspoken truth at the heart of the nation's racial divide. — Susan L. Taylor

This was a tragic event in human history, but by paying tribute to the Armenian community we ensure the lessons of the Armenian genocide are properly understood and acknowledged. — Jerry Costello

MODERN SAUDI HISTORY IN FIVE EASY LESSONS
If you did not go hungry in the reign of King Abdul Aziz, you would never go hungry.
If you did not have fun in the reign of King Saud, you would never have fun.
If you did not go to prison in the reign of King Faisal, you would never go to prison.
If you did not make money in the reign of King Khaled, you would never make money.
If you did not go bankrupt in the reign of King Fahd ... — Robert Lacey

It is very foolish to ignore the past. The man who does ignore it, and assumes that our problems are quite new, and that therefore the past has nothing at all to teach us, is a man who is not only grossly ignorant of the Scriptures, he is equally ignorant of some of the greatest lessons even in secular history. — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

My point is, or should be, simple: history happened. The object is not to undo it, distort it, or to make it fit our present political attitudes. The object of history, which each generation properly interprets anew, is to understand what happened and why. A multicultural Canada can and should look at its past with fresh eyes. It should, for example, study how the Ukrainians came to Canada, how they were treated, how they lived, sometimes suffered, ultimately prospered, and became Canadians. What historians should not do is to recreate history to make it serve present purposes. They should not obscure or reshape events to make them fit political agendas. They should not declare whole areas of the past off-limits because they can only be presented in politically unfashionable terms any more than they should fail to draw object lessons from a past that was frequently less than pleasant and less than honourable. Because the past was not perfect, it must not be made perfect today. — J.L. Granatstein

The first lesson of history is that evil is good. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

On the last good day he went to work for three hours and then came home and put on the History Channel. The program was about the Airstream RV. When it first came out, one one white knew what to make of the silver bullet, so the company sent a caravan of them on a promotional tour across Africa and Egypt. The native tribes came up the the RVs and poked at them with their spears. They prayed for the beasts to leave.
On the last good day, my father didn't' fall asleep while he was watching the show. He turned to me and said words that at the time were only words, not the life lessons they've since exploded into. "It just goes to show you," my father told me on the last good day, "the world's only as big as what you know. — Jodi Picoult

Still men be clever and in an hundred centuries or more, perchance will have found a way to journey thither; when that they have discovered and understood all things on the earth. What will a man be like in the xxvii century, or even the xx? Very like unto us, I do expect; I do not think that man's nature shall change; nor do I anticipate that he will be the wiser than we, for all his learning, for 'tis a part of that nature which is ours that we do not heed the lessons of history: neither our own, nor the world's. — Chico Kidd

Are we amateurs and not professionals? We know the lessons of history, we know the mistakes and we either act accordingly or collapse. Salvation lies in clarity and the courage to implement change — Thomas S. Power

Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I'm not even sure we can draw lessons from them. — P. J. O'Rourke

I think it is vitally important to study History. If we are going to lead Britain safely into the future, it is essential that we understand our country's historical roots. If we can learn the lessons of the past, we will be able to avoid making mistakes in the future. — Tony Blair

War is unlike life. It's a denial of everything you learn life is. And that's why when you get finished with it, you see that if offers no lessons that can't be bettered learned in civilian life. You are exposed to horrors you would sooner forget. — Robert Graff

A nation that fails to plan intelligently for the development and protection of its precious waters will be condemned to wither because of its shortsightedness. The hard lessons of history are clear, written on the deserted sands and ruins of once proud civilizations. — Lyndon B. Johnson

To forget is to render the pages of history as entirely blank, and the lessons of history as never taught. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

It's important to interrogate history, it's important to document history, because as a society we need constant reminders of the things that we've done in the past in the hope we can stop repeating these horrible lessons. — Matana Roberts

The history of the Holocaust is not over. Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been — Timothy Snyder

I'm a great reader of history. I love - I have been reading history since I was a kid, and learning the lessons globally of what happened with people. — Warren Mundine

He built the Empire, yet he was also the principal in its destruction. A great man, in so many ways, but great men have great faults ... One should learn the lessons of history. The mistakes of the past need only be made once ... Unless there are no other choices. — Joe Abercrombie

Every person should take a lesson from history. We should understand that wherever there have been internal fights and conflicts in the country, the country has been weakened. Due to this, the danger from outside increases. The country has to pay a big price due to this type of weakness. — Rajiv Gandhi

Today's coastal development along with hurricane amnesia places modern man on a collision course with catastrophe if the lessons of history are ignored. — Max Mayfield

The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lie dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman ... ' - Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy Adams, p. 379 — Irving Stone

Is the only lesson of history to be that mankind is unteachable? — Winston Churchill

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life. — Thomas Jefferson

The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors. — Max Lerner

It is necessary, for the sake of the forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and are one of man's great sources of light. The dawn dares when it rises. To attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to insult drunken victory, to hold one's position, to stand one's ground; that is the example which nations need, that is the light which electrifies them. — Victor Hugo

As a graduate of the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, I am astonished by Tolstoy's absolute mastery at describing battles and military tactics. If I were teaching military history in any country in the world, I would make War and Peace required reading for anyone who held any ambition for advancement into the officer corps. It should be on the night table of the leader of every country who wishes to send troops into war. No writer has ever described the horror and anarchy of battle with more authority. It is one of the timeless lessons of War and Peace that no one, not Napoleon, nor the Tsar, nor the Russian general Katuzov, has any idea how a war is going to turn out once it is unleashed. Napoleon — Leo Tolstoy

This plant represents what's happening inside of you. The world, like the soil, is cold and dark - layered with a history of destruction and death. You were planted in this world to rise above it. Do you not see? The very existence of this darkness gives you the opportunity to become a light to the world. — Seth Adam Smith