It would be almost unbelievable, if history did not record the tragic fact that men have gone to war and cut each other's throats because they could not agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut |
It would indeed be the ultimate tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump. |
Just as philosophy is the study of other people's misconceptions, so history is the study of other people's mistakes |
Just as philosophy is the study of other people's misconceptions, so history is the study of other people's mistakes |
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John Barth (1930-) |
John Barth (1930-) |
Kofi Annan (1938-) |
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. |
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government |
Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule. |
Marge Piercy (1936-) |
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Not only does the passage of time produce knowledge, it also produces ignorance... As the passage of time removes people with first-hand knowledge of an earlier era, they are replaced by people ignorant of those times and therefore easy targets for demagogues. |
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