history
Quotations
Quotations on the topic of ‘history’ from all listed authors (click on the ‘click to view listing’ links to view each quote in full).
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“We have not invaded anyone. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them.” -Abdul Kalam
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“History has taught us over and over again that freedom is not free. When push comes to shove, the ultimate protectors of freedom and liberty are the brave men and women in our armed forces. Throughout our history, they’ve answered the call in bravery and sacrifice.” -Tim Pawlenty
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“A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling ‘Stop!’” -William F. Buckley, Jr.
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“Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.” -Walt Whitman
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“People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.” -Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.” -Albert Schweitzer
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“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.” -William James
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“From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.” -Aldous Huxley
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“Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
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“Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.” -Bertrand Russell
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“Time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies history has no place for them.” -Norodom Sihanouk
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“I don’t believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.” -Pablo Picasso
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“Every age has its own poetry in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.” -Jean-Paul Sartre
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“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.” -Victor Hugo
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“In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.” -Leo Tolstoy
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“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” -George Orwell
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“For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.” -Hubert H. Humphrey
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“The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
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“You that would judge me, do not judge alone this book or that, come to this hallowed place where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace think where man’s glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.” -William Butler Yeats
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“The soles of Neil Armstrong’s boots on the moon made permanent impressions on our souls and in our national psyche. Ann and I watched those steps together on her parent’s sofa. Like all Americans we went to bed that night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world. God bless…
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“History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.” -B. C. Forbes
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“One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.” -Robert A. Heinlein
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“If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.” -Thomas Merton
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“The world’s battlefields have been in the heart chiefly more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history.” -Henry Ward Beecher
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“I’m the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don’t believe it, check the cash register.” -Mike Tyson
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“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.” -Margaret Thatcher
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“We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.” -Henry Ford
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“Woz is living his own life now. He hasn’t been around Apple for about five years. But what he did will go down in history.” -Steve Jobs
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“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.” -Warren Buffett
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“History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.” -B. R. Ambedkar
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“All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.” -Moliere
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“Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.” -Carl Sagan
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“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” -Charles Darwin
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“The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.” -Stephen Hawking
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“Blood alone moves the wheels of history.” -Martin Luther
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“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
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“Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.” -George Bernard Shaw
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“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” -Ronald Reagan
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“In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
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“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.” -Henry David Thoreau
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“I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.” -Robert Frost
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“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.” -Albert Camus
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“There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.” -Theodore Roosevelt
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“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.” -Thomas Sowell
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“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” -Stephen Covey
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“Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.” -Mahatma Gandhi
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“History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.” -Thomas Jefferson
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“For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.” -Winston Churchill
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“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.” -George Washington
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“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” -Ayn Rand
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“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” -Maya Angelou
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“Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time.” -C. S. Lewis
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“I think really, China, Chinese, I think they really have a long history of civilization, rich culture.” -Dalai Lama
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“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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“Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
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“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” -Robert Fulghum
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“That great dust-heap called ‘history’.” -Augustine Birrell
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“The Supreme Court’s only armor is the cloak of public trust its sole ammunition, the collective hopes of our society.” -Irving R. Kaufman
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“They were afraid, never having learned what I taught myself: Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear.” -G. Gordon Liddy
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“In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.” -Hugo Black
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“We learned the value of research in World War II.” -Amar Bose
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“The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.” -Peter Berger
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“To people who remember JFK’s assassination, JFK Jr. will probably always be that boy saluting his father’s coffin.” -Michael Beschloss
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“The real 1960s began on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. It came to seem that Kennedy’s murder opened some malign trap door in American culture, and the wild bats flapped out.” -Lance Morrow
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“We peruse one ideal, that of bringing people together in peace, irrespective of race, religion and political convictions, for the benefit of mankind.” -Juan Antonio Samaranch
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“The 1st Amendment protects the right to speak, not the right to spend.” -Byron White
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“France is delighted at this new opportunity to show the world that when one has the will one can succeed in joining peoples who have been brought close by history.” -Francois Mitterrand
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“An Edwardian lady in full dress was a wonder to behold, and her preparations for viewing were awesome.” -William Manchester
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“You can’t set a hen in one morning and have chicken salad for lunch.” -George M. Humphrey
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“Remember, God provides the best camouflage several hours out of every 24.” -David M. Shoup
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“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” -Marcus Garvey
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“Keeping books on social aid is capitalistic nonsense. I just use the money for the poor. I can’t stop to count it.” -Evita Peron
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“Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.” -James K. Polk
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“All truly historical peoples have an idea they must realize, and when they have sufficiently exploited it at home, they export it, in a certain way, by war they make it tour the world.” -Victor Cousin
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“Stonehenge was built possibly by the Minoans. It presents one of man’s first attempts to order his view of the outside world.” -Stephen Gardiner
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“Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.” -William O. Douglas
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“Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.” -Kofi Annan
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“The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist, particularly among our veterans, and to move forward with a positive relationship,… Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don’t want to do that and that’s their decision.” -Ho Chi Minh
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“I haven’t, in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the United States of America, ever violated an order – not one.” -Oliver North
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“Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.” -Wendell Phillips
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“You have to look at history as an evolution of society.” -Jean Chretien
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“Dad, I’m in some trouble. There’s been an accident and you’re going to hear all sorts of things about me from now on. Terrible things.” -Edward Kennedy
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“They can shout down the head of the physics department at Cal Tech.” -James Stockdale
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“Something as curious as the monarchy won’t survive unless you take account of people’s attitudes. After all, if people don’t want it, they won’t have it.” -Prince Charles
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“Generally speaking, historically in this country, the care of a child has been thought of as female business.” -Eddie Bernice Johnson
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“The construction of Europe is an art. It is the art of the possible.” -Jacques Chirac
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“The future has a way of arriving unannounced.” -George Will
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“I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief… For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” -Wendell Berry
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“I’m the only person of distinction who has ever had a depression named for him.” -Herbert Hoover
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“If we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic Congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.” -David Horowitz
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“The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.” -A. Whitney Brown
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“The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.” -Jessamyn West
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“I wouldn’t attach too much importance to these student riots. I remember when I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, I used to go out and riot occasionally.” -John Foster Dulles
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“Never doubt that you can change history. You already have.” -Marge Piercy
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“History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions.” -Ted Koppel
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“September 11th was a moment when America had the sympathy of the world.” -Tom Ford
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“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.” -Edward R. Murrow
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“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” -Frank Herbert
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“Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.” -Louis D. Brandeis
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“A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.” -Grover Cleveland
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“History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.” -Konrad Adenauer
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“Russians can give you arms but only the United States can give you a solution.” -Anwar Sadat
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“There are no extraordinary men… just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.” -William Halsey
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“Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee.” -Tacitus
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“Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.” -Douglas MacArthur
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“The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.” -Epicurus
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“Pearl Harbor caused our Nation to wholeheartedly commit to winning World War II, changing the course of our Nation’s history and the world’s future.” -Joe Baca
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“History never looks like history when you are living through it.” -John W. Gardner
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“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.” -Percy Bysshe Shelley
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“What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren’t supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown – watch the raindrops coming down the window pane?” -Jackie Kennedy
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“Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.” -Christopher Columbus
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“Be as a tower firmly set Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.” -Dante Alighieri
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“History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.” -George Santayana
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“Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.” -H. L. Mencken
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“History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.” -Alexis de Tocqueville
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“I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.” -Calvin Coolidge
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“France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they’ve forgotten all about it. I’m afraid that the American culture is a disaster.” -Johnny Depp
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“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” -Edmund Burke
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“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” -George Washington Carver
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“Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.” -George S. Patton
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“The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual – for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.” -M. Scott Peck
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“Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” -John Quincy Adams
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“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” -Confucius
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“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” -Abraham Lincoln
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“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” -Mark Twain
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