Quotes about history:
"Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them." - Anatole France
"History is the polemics of the victor." - William F. Buckley, Jr.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” - Anais Nin
"People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant." - Helen Keller
"By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves...We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise." - Charles V. Willie
"Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields." - Friedrich Nietzsche
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
- Maya Angelou
Quotes about and from ancient Greece:
"Now he no longer haunted the meeting grounds
where men win glory, now he no longer went to war
but day after day he ground his heart out, waiting there,
yearning, always yearning for battle cries and combat."
- Homer, Iliad, about Achilles
"The minds of the younger men are always flighty,
but let an old man stand his ground among them,
one who can see the days behind, the days ahead-
that is the best hope for peace, for both our armies."
- Homer, Iliad, quote from Menelaus before his battle with Paris
"Beauty, terrible beauty!
A deathless goddess - so she strikes our eyes!"
- Homer, Iliad, old men of Troy
Illustrious Paris - crush him under my hand!
So even among the men to come a man may shrink
from wounding the host who showers him with kindness."
- Homer, Iliad, quote from Menelaus during his battle with Paris
Agamemnon: "....Old war-horse,
if only your knees could match the spirit in your chest
and your body's strength were planted firm as rock,
but the great leveler, age, has worn you down.
If only some other fighter had your years
and you could march with the younger, fitter men!"
Nestor's reply: "True, Atrides, if only I were the man I was,
years ago, when I cut down rugged Ereuthalion...
but the gods won't give us all their gifts at once.
If I was a young man then, now old age dogs my steps."
- Homer, Iliad, dialogue between Agememnon and Nestor
Quotes about and from ancient Rome:
“My comrades, hardly strangers to pain before now, we all have weathered worse. Some god will grant us an end to this as well. You've threaded the rocks resounding with Scylla's howling rabid dogs, and taken the brunt of the Cyclops' boulders, too. Call up your courage again. Dismiss your grief and fear. A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this. Through so many hard straits, so many twists and turns our course holds firm for Latium. There Fate holds out a homeland, calm, at peace. There the gods decree the kingdom of Troy will rise again. Bear up. Save your strength for better times to come.”
― Virgil, The Aeneid
But the Consul’s brow was sad,
And the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe;
“Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge,
What hope to save the town?”
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods,
“And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,--
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?
“Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three:
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?”
Then out spake Spurius Lartius,--
A Ramnian proud was he:
“Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And keep the bridge with thee.”
And out spake strong Herminius,--
Of Titian blood was he:
“I will abide on thy left side,
And keep the bridge with thee.”
“Horatius,” quoth the Consul,
“As thou sayest so let it be,”
And straight against that great array
Went forth the dauntless three.
For Romans in Rome’s quarrel
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old.
Then none was for a party--
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great;
Then lands were fairly portioned!
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe,
And the tribunes beard the high,
And the fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold;
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old.
- Horatius at the Bridge, Thomas Babington Macaulay
Quotes about and from American history:
"He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins." - Frederick Douglass
"What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors." - James Baldwin
"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it." - James Baldwin
"What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind, and this trade [in Indian slaves] as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them." - Bartolomé de las Casas on the voyages of Christopher Columbus
"We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself -- and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty." - Chief Joseph
"It seems as if no man had ever died in America before, for in order to die you must first have lived...Memento mori!....Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know when to end. These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live." - Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown, October 30, 1859
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." - Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." - Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other....Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' - Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves, and with all nations." - Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865