Top 100 History Politics Quotes
#1. The prestige of the news is founded on the unstated assumption that our lives are forever poised on the verge of critical transformation thanks to the two driving forces of modern history: politics and technology.
Alain De Botton
#2. They went to Italy. Neither of them cared in the smallest degree for sculpture, architecture, painting, archaeology, poetry, history, politics, scenery, languages, or foreigners.
F.M. Mayor
#3. For so-called conscious rappers, it is an opportunity to rap about ways to educate others about African American history, politics and even relationships: all of which would be missed if society merely focused on the "hook" and ignored the influence.
Carlos Wallace
#4. The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!
Albert Einstein
#5. A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason.
Noah Webster
#6. Nobody who really thinks about history can take politics altogether seriously.
Susan Sontag
#7. Jean-Marie Le Pen is a holocaust denier who was convicted and fined for dismissing Nazi concentration camps as a, quote, "Detail in History." But he kept running this anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, populist unapologetic xenophobic far right party in French politics.
Rachel Maddow
#8. Is there in all the history of human folly a greater fool than a clergymen in politics?
Pat Robertson
#9. We gotta control inflation, quit spending our money on everything. But this years tax increase, why it's the biggest in history.
Hank Williams Jr.
#10. History is really a study of the future, not the past.
Arundhati Roy
#11. I think politics can no longer be assigned to parliamentary activity and it probably never could be. But politics with a small p and the history of trade union movement really interests me.
Saffron Burrows
#12. A lot of history is just dirty politics cleaned up for the consumption of children and other innocents.
Richard Reeves
#13. When I was 17, I came to the U.S. to study Middle Eastern history and politics at Columbia University.
Julia Bacha
#14. War is always a contest of words as well as of wounds.
Samuel Moyn
#15. The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
[Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]
James Madison
#16. Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.
Arthur Koestler
#17. A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.
Jose Marti
#18. The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been.
Arthur Koestler
#19. He dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes.
Jon Meacham
#20. Can't you see there's a determinism about the fate of nations? They all seem to get what they deserve in the long run.
Malcolm Lowry
#21. I honestly believe I'd make one of the worst elected officials in the history of this country.
Ross Perot
#22. If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems we're told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without the breath of real freedom we're getting nowhere fast.
(History Will Teach Us Nothing)
Sting
#23. I have come to realize that in life and politics, there is always more to take into consideration.
Michael Bronski
#24. Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written.
Dan Simmons
#25. If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
Pearl S. Buck
#26. Ours was a family in which everybody was constantly reading, and where literature, politics, history, and the events of the prize ring were discussed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Louis L'Amour
#27. I do not really think Charlie knows much more about politics, history, or economics than I do. Like myself he was hit by a make-up towel almost before he was out of diapers.
Buster Keaton
#28. History is not always pessimistic for if World War II Europe has taught us anything it is that the rebuilding of cities is possible and the mending of a nation's spirit can be achieved.
Aysha Taryam
#30. David Stern might be the smartest executive in the history of professional sports. His obsession with the Vagrant Kings is one of the strangest stories.
R.E. Graswich
#31. Once you were in the hands of a Grand Vizier, you were dead. Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: "Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted minister.
Terry Pratchett
#32. Leaders of all systems (Capitalism, Communism, etc.) in History claimed to serve the people. All Systems would work if the leaders meant it!
Francis Mont
#33. What I'm passionate about is History, and politics interest me only insofar as it is the cross-section of History in the present.
Chris Marker
#34. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
#35. After twelve centuries, a little hope had come into the world - and then came an illiterate prince to ride roughshod over it with a barbarian horde and...
Walter M. Miller
#36. What do I want in a good fantasy book? Court politics and social interactions based around houses and cities. Powerful women and devious men. Drama and action with emotional ramifications. Frocks. Kissing. Swords. An intense impression of history in the world-building.
Tansy Rayner Roberts
#37. There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment in history or nothing happens.
Coretta Scott King
#38. Politics? Boring? Politics is history on the wing! What other sphere of human activity calls forth all that is most noble in men's souls, and all that is most base? Or has such excitement? Or more vividly exposes our strengths and weaknesses? Boring? You might as well say that life itself is boring!
Robert Harris
#39. Knocking on doors wasn't working. We had to try something else. Remember the kids whose natural curiosity brought them into our little office on the corner? We set up a Freedom School that was fashioned after the SNCC Freedom Schools in Mississippi and other places.
Junius Williams
#41. To paint, to write, to engage in politics - these are not merely 'sublimations'; here we have aims that are willed for their own sakes. To deny it is to falsify all human history.
Simone De Beauvoir
#42. Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.
Theodore Roosevelt
#43. The attempt to isolate economics from other disciplines-notably politics, history, philosophy, finance, constitutional theory and sociology-has fatally disabled its power to explain what is happening in the world.
Will Hutton
#44. A new chapter in the history of international politics has begun, one in which the pursuit and control of energy resources would be the central dynamic of world affairs, and governments.
Michael Klare
#45. For a man is justly despised who has one opinion in history and another in politics, one for abroad and another at home, one for opposition and another for office. History
John Emerich Edward Dalberg
#46. More history than ever is today being revised or invented by people who do not want the real past, but only a past that suits their purpose. Today is the great age of historical mythology. The defence of history by its professionals is today more urgent in politics than ever. We are needed.
Eric Hobsbawm
#47. For the first time in history, the human species as a whole has gone into politics. Everyone is in the act, and there is no telling what may come of it.
Saul Bellow
#48. What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.
Christopher Hitchens
#49. Saudis of all sorts recent having to beg princes for favors to secure services that should be a public right
Karen Elliott House
#50. Socialism is "group-think." How uninformed in history do you have to be to advocate for "group-think"??
A.E. Samaan
#51. Gay men are guardians of the masculine impulse. To have anonymous sex in a dark alleyway is to pay homage to the dream of male freedom. The unknown stranger is a wandering pagan god. The altar, as in pre-history, is anywhere you kneel.
Camille Paglia
#52. Hitler knew nothing about his enemies and even refused to use the information that was available to him. Instead, he trusted his inspirations, no matter how inherently contradictory they may be and these inspirations were governed by extreme contempt and underestimation of the others.
Albert Speer
#53. The Bush administration may, in future years, be remembered 'for bringing peace to the Middle East' (as Condoleezza Rice has pronounced). History may be the mother of truth, but it can also give birth to illegitimate children.
Alberto Manguel
#54. Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.
Michael Eric Dyson
#55. Corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die.
Taylor Caldwell
#56. The United Staes had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred,
Samantha Power
#57. We give Supreme Court justices this freedom because we expect them to remain above the pull of politics, to avoid the effects of public excitement and allow a broader view, not tied to the whims of the majority at a certain moment in history.
Herb Kohl
#58. Women often get dropped from memory, and then history.
Doris Lessing
#59. The methodologies of examining hip hop are borrowed from sociology, politics, religion, economics, urban studies, journalism, communications theory, American studies, transatlantic studies, black studies, history, musicology, comparative literature, English, linguistics, and other disciplines.
Michael Eric Dyson
#60. A year is an eternity in politics - though less than a moment in history.
Eliot Spitzer
#61. One of the many dreadful aspects of the Kennedy 'legacy' is the now-unbreakable grip of celebrity politics, image-doctoring, stage management, and "torch-passing" rhetoric in general.
Christopher Hitchens
#62. A critical knowledge of the evolution of the idea of property would embody, in some respects, the most remarkable portion of the mental history of mankind.
Lewis Henry Morgan
#63. Unlike Churchill, I have no plans to shape history ... Socrates gave advice
George H. W. Bush
#64. The feminine section of the proletarian army is of particularly great significance... the success of a revolution depends on the extent to which women take part in it.
Vladimir Lenin
#65. He may be incensed, said Dizzy. I've never doubted the old parson's faith, but it has no place in politics. Good God, just imagine if each man allowed himself to be swayed by moral compunctions; we'd never get a damned thing accomplished in Parliament.
Carol K. Carr
#66. My art history papers were really politics. They were about the manifestation of culture through the eye of political events. So there was always that refusal to settle in one place, or one discipline or medium.
Roselee Goldberg
#67. With Zia's controversial demise in 1988, Jinnah was finally spared the false beard Zia kept pinning on the founder's otherwise clean-shaven face.
Nadeem Farooq Paracha
#68. When you examine the genesis of great works of art, successful start-ups, and revolutionary shifts in politics, you can always trace back a history of monetary and nonmonetary exchange, the hidden patrons and underlying favors.
Amanda Palmer
#69. Elizabeth Cady read the nation's great Declaration, and it bothered her. All men are created equal, it said. But what about women?
Joy Hakim
#70. There was an aura about King that was unforgettable. I seem him now in my mind's eye: collected, peaceful, calm. He was in his element and totally in command of himself and the situation.
Junius Williams
#71. The most powerful men of the kingdom have dragged a duchess down and sent her out to be a marvel to the common people of London. They are so deeply afraid of her that they took the risk to dishonor their own. They are so anxious to save themselves that they thought they should throw her aside.
Philippa Gregory
#72. Who is fit to be elected?' asked Napoleon. 'A Caesar, an Alexander only comes along once a century, so that election must be a matter of chance.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
#73. So on June 16, 1970, history was made in Newark. Ken Gibson became the first black mayor of a major Northeastern city.
Junius Williams
#74. Is it more important for you to know what happened in the First World War or to memorize other significant dates in history, or is it more important to learn the strategies they used for optimum leadership, success and joyful living?
Don't you think schools need to teach the latter?
Maddy Malhotra
#75. It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.
Madeleine M. Kunin
#76. I clink my glass against hers and we drink without toasting. The aged cognac tastes like history. Not the kind taught in schools, full of wars and politics and cultural revolution - the smaller, softer history of a world with only two people in it.
Isaac Marion
#78. Our ancestors wholeheartedly sacrificed their lives to fight against tyranny, and we are allowing that very same tyranny to exist! Let us open our eyes!
Yanan Melo
#79. I think I have done well, though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me.
John Wilkes Booth
#80. How does the richest country in the history of the world fail to pay its bills?
Rick Perry
#81. Just as all politics is local, all good history is personal.
Marcia Clark
#82. The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesn't enter into it.
Jill Lepore
#83. Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers' cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
#84. I was once a statist, and then I researched The Holocaust. I am now a Libertarian.
A.E. Samaan
#85. Guns neither initiated nor enabled larger changes. Economic, political, and social development preceded and laid the foundation for the invention and use of the gun, not the other way around.
Peter A. Lorge
#86. We're at a point in history where everyone needs to pay attention to politics. Too much is at stake for us to be apathetic.
Kevin Costner
#88. Apocalypse is the lens through which we view international politics because it is the fons et origo of the concept of history and historiography. Were it not for apocalypse, we would not have the categories of mind with which to ask the questions of meaning and adequacy of interpretation. M
Robert Hamerton-Kelly
#89. History doesn't remember gardens.
...
You forgot the wise administrators, those who kept the peace, those who brought prosperity. You needn't feel embarrassed, though. So did history.
Andrew Ashling
#90. Only victors have stories to tell,
we the vanquished were then thought of
as cowards and weaklings whose memories
and fears should not be remembered.
Guy Sajer
#91. Politics is history in the present tense.
John Avlon
#92. No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.
Hannah Arendt
#93. Life was not always so peaceful and rewarding at NAPA (the office). Sometime during 1968, I cam back to the office and found the plate glass window shattered. I asked Ab what happened, and he strangely knew nothing.
Junius Williams
#94. I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian.
Howard Zinn
#95. The fact is, when men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them - neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries. For single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity will sustain them all.
Fidel Castro
#97. I'm not really interested in religion or history or science or mathematics or psychology or politics or geography. I feel I am above them all, except geography. Geography is above me for now.
Bill Callahan
#98. In five hundred years' time, to the historian writing the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, this little episode would not exist. There will be plenty of other causes. You and me and poor Jones will not even figure in a footnote. It will be all economics, politics, battles.
Graham Greene
#99. Boris Nemtsov, left his mark on the history of Russia, in politics and public life. He worked on important positions in the difficult transition period for our country. He always openly and honestly stated his position, defended his point of view.
Vladimir Putin
#100. For virtually all the socialist revolutions of the twentieth century, it was not a crisis of the capitalist system, but imperialist war that pushed old orders into crisis...
S.A. Smith
