1896 quotes by historians for you to enjoy

The Celtic, Galatian, or Gallic nation received from the common mother endowments different from those of its Italian, Germanic, and Hellenic sisters. Theodor Mommsen

Mother Nation Those Italian Germanic Sisters Celtic Common Endowment Different Received

An independent state does not pay too dear a price for its independence in accepting the sufferings of war when it cannot avoid them; a state which has lost its independence may find at least some compensation in the fact that its protector procures for it peace with its neighbours. Theodor Mommsen

War Peace Independence Lost Pay Too State Independent Neighbours Find Some Fact Price Protector Accepting Does Least Dear May Cannot Which Them Avoid Sufferings Compensation

The history of Rome presents various men of greater genius than Scipio Aemilianus, but none equalling him in moral purity, in the utter absence of political selfishness, in generous love of his country, and none, perhaps, to whom destiny has assigned a more tragic part. Theodor Mommsen

Love History Genius Political Men Country Destiny Moral More Purity Various Absence Part Generous Perhaps Him Greater None His Selfishness Tragic Than The History Of Rome Whom Utter Assigned Presents

The power to regulate the value of money does not involve a power to dilute the value of money by inflation, an absurd and self-serving rendering. Thomas Woods

Money Inflation Value Power Absurd Involve Rendering Does Self-Serving Regulate

Discussions of the economy, especially during times of crisis, are often framed in terms of lessons we supposedly learned during the Depression of the 1930s. If we are not to endure terrible times like those again, we are told, we must support whatever form of state intervention is currently being peddled. Thomas Woods

Depression Whatever Intervention State Framed Those Crisis Must Support Like Economy Supposedly Terms Terrible Learned Times Discussions Often Currently Being Endure Form Again Lessons

Understanding the true causes of the Depression, as well as the real economic record of the United States in the 1930s, is an essential ingredient in anyone's economic and historical education. Thomas Woods

Education Depression Understanding States Record Economic True Well Real Causes Historical Essential Anyone Ingredient United United States

The Emergency Banking Act reached back in time to amend the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which had originally been intended to criminalize economic intercourse between American citizens and declared enemies of the United States. Thomas Woods

Time Enemy Enemies Back Criminalize States Citizens Emergency Economic Had Between Reached Trading Been Amend American Intended American Citizens Banking Intercourse Which Act Originally United United States

Public protests against globalization - protests that occur by and large in the prosperous West - denounce free trade and the mobility of capital as instruments of exploitation and oppression. Thomas Woods

Oppression Free Exploitation Free Trade Prosperous Globalization Instruments Protests Trade Occur West Mobility Denounce Against Public Capital Large

One of the market's virtues, and the reason it enables so much peaceful interaction and cooperation among such a great variety of peoples, is that it demands of its participants only that they observe a relatively few basic principles, among them honesty, the sanctity of contracts, and respect for private property. Thomas Woods

Great Property Respect Honesty People Few Sanctity Market Virtues Relatively Only Variety Observe Participants Demands Principles Enables Private Private Property Contracts Interaction Them Much Reason Peaceful Cooperation Among Basic Basic Principles

It does irritate me when I am described as a controversialist and commentator on Israel. Tony Judt

Me Does Am Israel Commentator Irritate

I started work on my first French history book in 1969; on 'Socialism in Provence' in 1974; and on the essays in Marxism and the French Left in 1978. Conversely, my first non-academic publication, a review in the 'TLS', did not come until the late 1980s, and it was not until 1993 that I published my first piece in the 'New York Review.' Tony Judt

I just like being on my own on trains, traveling. I spent all my pocket money travelling the London Underground and Southern Railway, what used to be the Western region, and in Europe as much as I could afford it. My parents used to think I was going places, but I wasn't, I was just travelling the trains. Tony Judt

Money Parents Own Think Spent London Pocket My Own Could Like Underground Western Southern Trains Afford Going Just Being Places Region Much Used Europe Traveling Travelling Railway

I was born in 1948, so I'm a '60s kid, and in the '60s everyone talked all the time, endlessly, about socialism versus capitalism, about political choices, ideology, Marxism, revolution, 'the system' and so on. Tony Judt

Time Capitalism Socialism Political Ideology Revolution Everyone Kid System Born About Marxism Talked Versus Endlessly Choices

Social democrats are characteristically modest - a political quality whose virtues are overestimated. We need to apologise a little less for our shortcomings and speak more assertively of achievements. That these were always incomplete should not trouble us. Tony Judt

Quality Speak Political Trouble Incomplete Our Virtues More Democrats Overestimated Always Were Achievements Shortcomings Little Social Modest Us Apologise Should Less Whose Need

History always happens to us and nothing ever stays the same. Tony Judt

History Nothing Stays Always Same Happens Us Ever

It would be suicide in the American academy to show too early an interest beyond your doctoral specialization: charges of everything from charlatanry to ambition would be levied and tenure denied. I've seen this first-hand. Tony Judt

What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run. Tony Judt

Else Beneficial Tend Well Am Go Condition False Historical Optimism Either Against Notion Things Default

I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views. Tony Judt

People Strong Eat Boss Write Read Around Still Very Views

What has gone catastrophically wrong in England and the States is that for 30 years we've lost the ability to talk about the state in positive terms. We've raised a generation or two of young people who don't think to ask, 'What can the state do that is good?' Tony Judt

I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next, a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter. Tony Judt

Teacher Myself History Matter First See Above Only Voice Writer Participant Occasional Within Affairs Intellectual Left Commentator Discussion American Public Then Next European Jewish

History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it. Tony Judt

Words can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over. Tony Judt

Words Master Simply Over Make Subject Illness

I believe that if we think back to the period from F.D.R. through, let us say, Bush I, until the end of the Cold War, we lived through an artificial period in which American interests and European interests essentially dovetailed. Tony Judt

Quotes by Historians