Historian Quotes

The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

Socialism means slavery.

History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the table of eternity.

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The greatest men, you can quote for everything.

The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

By a series of violent shocks, the nations in succession have struggled to shake off the Past, to reverse the action of Time and the verdict of success, and to rescue the world from the reign of the dead.

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

Liberty is the prevention of control by others.

Liberty is the condition of duty, the guardian of conscience. It grows as conscience grows. The domains of both grow together. Liberty is safety from all hindrances, even sin. So that Liberty ends by being Free Will.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The biographies and autobiographies are on the whole more impressive than the fiction of the last two decades, but the freakish best sellers among them are least likely to withstand the test of time.

So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it.