History Quotes

I will only say that many freedom fighters of India found their calling in the institutions of Britain. And many makers of modern India, including several of my distinguished predecessors, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr Manmohan Singh, passed through their doors.

The whole country is ecstatic and each heart is illuminated. Entire country is emotional and overwhelmed to be a part of history and witness this long awaited historic moment. The centuries of wait is getting over today. Crores of Indians, I am sure are unable to believe that they could be a part of such a momentous occasion in their lifetimes. Today, the Ram Janmabhoomi has become free from the centuries-old chain of destruction and resurrection.

Happy will they be who lend ear to the words of the dead.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

The knowledge of higher leadership can only be acquired by the study of military history and actual experience. There are no hard and fast rules; everything depends on the plans of the general, the condition of the troops, the season of the year, and a thousand other circumstances, which have the effect that no one case will ever resemble another.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

I saw the way to achieve all my dreams. . . . I would found a religion, I saw myself marching on the way to Asia, mounted on an elephant, a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Koran that I would have composed to suit my needs. In my enterprises I would have combined the experiences of the two worlds, exploiting the realm of all history for my own profit.

In tragedy great men are more truly great than in history. We see them only in the crises which unfold them.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.

History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones.

The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples. It blazed anew in the Middle Ages. It was written in Magna Charta.

We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.

On each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.

To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock - to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.

Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst of shock - but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.

Among democracies, I think through all the recorded history of the world, the building of permanent institutions like libraries and museums for the use of all the people flourishes.

I accuse the present Administration of being the greatest spending Administration in peacetime in all American history - one which piled bureau on bureau, commission on commission, and has failed to anticipate the dire needs or reduced earning power of the people.