Quotes by Historians

If we don't take responsibility for each other, it seems to me the future is going to be even bleaker. Margaret MacMillan

Future Me Responsibility Other Seems Take Going Even Each

I'm not sure I'm going to say that women and men are exactly the same. I think we may have different ways of approaching things, different sensitivities, and women are often better than men at picking up emotional cues. Margaret MacMillan

Women Better Approaching Men Think Say Ways Exactly Exactly The Same Emotional Picking Sure Women And Men Women Are Up Than Same Going May Often Different Different Ways Things

Living through times of rapid change can be exhilarating, but it also can be very difficult. Margaret MacMillan

Change Living Difficult Rapid Through Also Exhilarating Very Times

A lot of my father's family in Canada volunteered in the First World War because they saw it as a war that was defending the mother country. Margaret MacMillan

War Family World Mother Father First Country Saw Volunteered Because First World First World War Lot Canada World War Defending

I'm interested in the balance between big currents in history - the economies, the ideologies, social structures, and so on - and the decisions that people have to make. At the heart of all these great decisions to go to war, there are human beings who have to say, 'Yes, let's do it,' or 'No, we won't do it.' Margaret MacMillan

War Great History Balance Heart People Big Say Structures Between Economies Make Ideologies Go Yes Human Currents Human Beings Decisions Interested Social Who Beings

Maintaining peace can be as strenuous as winning a war. Margaret MacMillan

War Peace Winning Maintaining Strenuous

If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. Martin Van Creveld

You Strong Idiot Fighting Weak Him Opponent Scoundrel Then Your

The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of 'targets' to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting. Martin Van Creveld

Needs Enemy Living Destroyed Entity He Reacting Targets Intelligent Capable Us Acting Resembles Therefore Assembly

It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight. Martin Van Creveld

I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place. Martin Van Creveld

Kind More Put Firmly Feminists Maudlin Any Want Place Number

A world without war is not in the cards. Martin Van Creveld

War World Without Cards

'Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever. Martin Van Creveld

Word Too Much Nothing Too Lasts Never Forever Much

Since 2006, when the Second Lebanon War killed perhaps 2,000 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of an entire section of Beirut, the northern border has been absolutely quiet. Martin Van Creveld

One must learn, if one is to see the beauty in Japan, to like an extraordinarily restrained and delicate loveliness. Mary Ritter Beard

Beauty Extraordinarily Must See Restrained Delicate Like Learn Loveliness Japan

The results of philanthropy are always beyond calculation. Mary Ritter Beard

Philanthropy Results Calculation Beyond Always

Viewed narrowly, all life is universal hunger and an expression of energy associated with it. Mary Ritter Beard

Life Energy Hunger Narrowly Viewed Expression Universal Associated

Wherever we go, across the Pacific or Atlantic, we meet, not similarity so much as 'the bizarre'. Things astonish us, when we travel, that surprise nobody else. Mary Ritter Beard

Travel Else Meet Astonish Bizarre Atlantic Similarity Nobody Nobody Else Go Surprise Wherever Pacific Us Much Across Things

Those who sit at the feast will continue to enjoy themselves even though the veil that separates them from the world of toiling reality below has been lifted by mass revolts and critics. Mary Ritter Beard

The more business one has, the more you are able to accomplish, for you learn to economize your time. Matthew Hale

Time You Business Able More Economize Learn Accomplish Your

Christianity is part of the Common Law of England. Matthew Hale

Law Christianity Part Common Common Law England

Historians often find important decisions few knew were important at the time. Michael Beschloss

Time Important Few Find Knew Important Decisions Were Historians Often Decisions

American political scions evoke a central contradiction in our thinking. We believe - or say we do - in nurture, not nature. Yet we are comforted by the aristocratic notion that leadership might run in the bloodlines. Michael Beschloss

Leadership Nature Political Nurture Believe Thinking Our Say Evoke Run Aristocratic Comforted Contradiction American Central Might Notion