History Quotes

They died hard, those savage men - like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massa…

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages.

The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

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.

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

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 a…

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

History is more or less bunk.