Quotes

“One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. Do we need to keep repeating the same mistakes forever?”

— Thomas Sowell, Twitter Feed, June 23, 2018

“Ironically, European history, and not simply French, German, or British history, has had a much longer history [of being taught] in the United States than in Europe itself because the teaching of European history in the United States served first to form an elite and then, with the coming of World War I and II, to create a sense of common values shared between the United States and its European allies.”

— Lynn Hunt, History: Why it Matters, pgs 79-80

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of a human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero, Orator

“The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty, but to have a slave of his own.”

— Sir Richard Francis Burton, The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night (1885), When it was the Three Hundred and Sixtieth Night, footnote.

“The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.”

— James Quincy Adams, Letter to George Washington Adams, 15 September 1811.

“I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can.”

— Marquis de Lafayette, Letter to his father-in-law the Duc d’Ayan December 4, 1776.