Quotes · Skopia

186 quotes

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx · 1852 Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave. — H.A.L. Fisher · 1935 History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776 History is the essence of innumerable Biographies. — Thomas Carlyle · 1830 Human blunders, however, usually, do more to shape history than human wickedness. — A.J.P. Taylor · 1961 Nothing changes more constantly that the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but what men believe happened. — Gerald White Johnson · 1943 All 8 quotes →

Nature of history7 quotes

The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1832 Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave. — H.A.L. Fisher · 1935 America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy. — Samuel Eliot Morison · 1965 History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776 History is the essence of innumerable Biographies. — Thomas Carlyle · 1830 Human blunders, however, usually, do more to shape history than human wickedness. — A.J.P. Taylor · 1961 All 7 quotes →

Freedom6 quotes

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC Freedom is always freedom for the one who thinks differently. — Rosa Luxemburg · 1919 Despots themselves do not deny that freedom is excellent; only they desire it for themselves alone, and they maintain that everyone else is altogether unworthy of it. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856 O liberty! O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name! — Alphonse de Lamartine · 1793 How strongly does this bear out the truth of Plato's maxim, that he who wishes to be really rich ought to lessen his desires rather than increase his property, because if a man places no bounds to his covetousness, he never will be free from want and misery. — Plutarch Freedom alone substitutes from time to time for the love of material comfort more powerful and more lofty passions; it alone supplies ambition with greater objectives than the acquisition of riches, and creates the light that makes it possible to see and to judge the vices and virtues of mankind. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856

Law5 quotes

Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. — Anacharsis Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776 There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law. — Diogenes Laertius · 240 Anacharsis laughed at Solon for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and rich. — Anacharsis · 119 Statements, indictments, bills are circulated, shuffled between judges, prosecutors, the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor’s office; each step in the process clear, logical, and designed to create corpses by due process of law. — Hilary Mantel · 2012

Patriarchy5 quotes

This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons hitherto brought forward in explanation of this fact has seemed adequate. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 Your great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you, and the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether they are praising you or criticizing you. — Pericles · 430 BC A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments. — Herodotus · 430 BC Our ancestors refused to allow any woman to transact even private business without a guardian to represent her; women had to be under the control of fathers, brothers, or husbands. But we (heaven preserve us!) are now allowing them even to take part in politics, and actually to appear in the Forum and to be present at our meetings and assemblies!... Give a free rein to their unprincipled nature, to this untamed animal, and then expect them to set a limit on their own license! — Livy · 9 BC Great is the glory of the woman who occasions the least talk among men, whether of praise or of blame. — Thucydides · 404 BC

War5 quotes

If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight. — Herodotus · 430 BC Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you. — Suetonius · 52 No one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons. However, I suppose the god must have wanted this to happen. — Herodotus · 430 BC Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip, and Germans, no less than other peoples, prepare for the last war. — Barbara Tuchman · 1962 The wars fought by human beings are stimulated as a rule primarily by the same instincts as the voracity of the sea slug. — Edmund Wilson · 1962

Man and animals4 quotes

It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 A sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them—without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret... Humans—who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals—have had an understandable penchant for pretending that animals do not feel pain... It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer... The behavior of other animals, especially the chimps and bonobos, renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us. — Carl Sagan · 1992 All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes. — Sallust · 42 BC The wars fought by human beings are stimulated as a rule primarily by the same instincts as the voracity of the sea slug. — Edmund Wilson · 1962

Capitalism3 quotes

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation...That incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Every piece of business strategy... Must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942

Courage3 quotes

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight. — Herodotus · 430 BC But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC

Education3 quotes

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, and a refuge in adversity. — Aristotle Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. — H.G. Wells · 1920 [Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942

Fortune3 quotes

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. — Edward Gibbon · 1789 The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless. — Herodotus · 430 BC Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave. — Edward Gibbon · 1789

Marxism3 quotes

Marxism is a religion. To the believer it presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends which implies a plan of salvation and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 In one important sense, Marxism is a religion. To the believer it presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends which implies a plan of salvation and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942 Marxism is essentially a product of the bourgeois mind. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942

Men and women3 quotes

When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949 Our ancestors refused to allow any woman to transact even private business without a guardian to represent her; women had to be under the control of fathers, brothers, or husbands. But we (heaven preserve us!) are now allowing them even to take part in politics, and actually to appear in the Forum and to be present at our meetings and assemblies!... Give a free rein to their unprincipled nature, to this untamed animal, and then expect them to set a limit on their own license! — Livy · 9 BC

Moral theory3 quotes

It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad. — Plutarch · 119 Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. — Edward Gibbon · 1781 Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776

Political theory3 quotes

You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides · 404 BC The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. — Robert Maynard Hutchins · 1954 Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942

Vietnam War3 quotes

Out on the street I couldn't tell the Vietnam veterans from the rock and roll veterans. The Sixties had made so many casualties, its war and its music had run power off the same circuit for so long they didn't even have to fuse. — Michael Herr · 1977 We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the priniples and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in the light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribbly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why. — Robert McNamara · 1995 I think that Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods. — Michael Herr · 1977

American frontier2 quotes

What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history. — Frederick Jackson Turner · 1893 The frontier is the outer edge of the wave-the meeting-point between savagery and civilization... And line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. — Frederick Jackson Turner · 1893

Anti-imperialism2 quotes

When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity. — C.L.R. James · 1938 There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations in opposition to their inclination and interest. — Edward Gibbon · 1781

Christianity2 quotes

The pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors. — Edward Gibbon · 1788 It had been boldly predicted by some of the early Christians that the conversion of the world would lead to the establishment of perpetual peace. In looking back, with our present experience, we are driven to the melancholy conclusion that, instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously increased it. — William E.H. Lecky · 1869

Counterfactual history2 quotes

Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. — Edward Gibbon · 1789 If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942

Death2 quotes

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. — Charles Dickens · 1859 O eloquent, just, and mighty Death!... Thou hast drawn together all the farstretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet (here lies). — Sir Walter Raleigh · 1614

Decisions and choices2 quotes

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. — Karl Marx · 1852 The die is cast. — Julius Caesar · 49 BC

Decline of Rome2 quotes

The pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors. — Edward Gibbon · 1788 This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. — Edward Gibbon · 1776

Democracy2 quotes

Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame. — Pericles · 430 BC Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it. — Joseph Schumpeter · 1942

French Revolution2 quotes

The French Revolution operated in reference to this world in exactly the same manner as religious revolutions acted in view of the other world. It considered the citizen as an abstract proposition apart from any particular society, in the same way as religions considered man as man, independent of country and time. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856 If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942

Friends2 quotes

One soul dwelling in two bodies. — Aristotle We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us. — Aristotle · 240

Friendship2 quotes

One soul dwelling in two bodies. — Aristotle To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship. — Catiline · 50 BC

God and man2 quotes

It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness. — Artabanus · 430 BC All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes. — Sallust · 42 BC

Happiness2 quotes

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. — Epicurus · 240

Hope2 quotes

Hope is a waking dream. — Aristotle · 240 Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up. — Studs Terkel · 2003

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