“Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon [Sparta], made war inevitable.”
— Thucydides Primary source“History, in the objective meaning of the word, is the process of change; in the subjective meaning, it is the study of how and why one situation changes into another.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source”History is a graveyard of aristocracies.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary source“Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“On the whole, in imperialism nothing fails like success.”
— William Ralph Inge Primary source“The golden age never was the present age.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“When we reflect upon the brutal vices of these salt-water bandits, pirates as shameful as any whom the sea has borne, or recoil from their villainous destruction and cruel deeds, we must also remember the discipline, the fortitude, the comradeship and martial virtues which made them at this period beyond all challenge the most formidable and daring race in the world.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“The 1930’s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“There is no sense in calculating the probability or the chance that something happens after it happens.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“The history of man is the history of the continuous replacement of certain elites: as one ascends, another declines.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary source“Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.”
— Amelia Earhart Primary source“The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.”
— Thucydides Primary source“Thus ended the great American Civil War, which must upon the whole be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass-conflicts of which till then there was record.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“It [using ChatGPT in schools] reminds me of the time when electronic calculators became widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. Some math teachers worried that students would stop learning how to do basic arithmetic, but others embraced the new technology and focused on the thinking skills behind the arithmetic.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“If the 1980s were about quality 1990s were about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity. About how quickly the nature of business will change. About how quickly business itself will be transacted.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“The new elite which seeks to supersede the old one, or merely to share its power and honors, does not admit to such an intention frankly and openly.”
— Vilfredo Pareto Primary source“The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice, because so long as a case has to be scrutinised by twelve honest men, defendant and plaintiff alike have a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern Western historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we diagnose each case, in extremis or post mortem, we invariably find that the cause of death has been either War or Class or some, combination of the two.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“I encourage everyone to follow developments in AI as much as possible. It’s the most transformative innovation any of us will see in our lifetimes.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.”
— Helen Keller Primary source“And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. Let us then declare that King Arthur and his noble knights, guarding the Sacred Flame of Christianity and the theme of a world order, sustained by valour, physical strength, and good horses and armour, slaughtered innumerable hosts of foul barbarians and set decent folk an example for all time.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“I am a biography nut myself. And I think when you’re trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them. I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend. That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better for you in life and work better in education. It’s way better than just giving the basic concepts.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years. The records of her trial present us with facts alive to-day through all the mists of time. Out of her own mouth can she be judged in each generation. She embodied the natural goodness and valour of the human race in unexampled perfection. Unconquerable courage, infinite compassion, the virtue of the simple, the wisdom of the just, shone forth in her. She glorifies as she freed the soil from which she sprang.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“Rome seemed as powerful and stable as ever. But below the surface the foundations were cracking, and through the fissures new ideas and new institutions were thrusting themselves. The cities are everywhere in decline; trade, industry, and agriculture bend under the weight of taxation. Communications are less safe, and some provinces are infested with marauders, peasants who can no longer earn a living on the land.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“The history of the development of technique, like the history of geographical expansion, has failed to provide us with a criterion of the growth of civilizations, but it does reveal a principle by which technical progress is governed, which may be described as a law of progressive simplification. The ponderous and bulky steam-engine with its elaborate ‘permanent way’ is replaced by the neat and handy internal-combustion engine which can take to the roads with the speed of a railway train and almost all the freedom of action of a pedestrian. Telegraphy with wires is replaced by telegraphy without wires. The incredibly complicated scripts of the Sinic and Egyptiac societies are replaced by the neat and handy Latin Alphabet.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“Now it is a law which hardly admits of exceptions, that aristocracies do not maintain their numbers. The ruling race rules itself out; nothing fails like success.”
— William Ralph Inge Primary source“Someone once said that history is written by the victors. He probably was not the greatest of all victors, if only because his name has been utterly forgotten.”
— Winston Churchill Disputed“Time after time, history ran over the luddites and romanticists, those who sought to restore the old and delay the new. And every time, history did it with faster, more reliable and more advanced vehicles.”
— Winston Churchill DisputedTechnology War Class Aristocracies Time