Favorite Historical Quotes

[Petek]

Here are three quotes that I've picked up from sigs on Usenet:

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
--Mark Twain

"The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical midgets. We know more about war than we know of peace, more about killing than we know about living."

......Gen. Omar Bradley, a hero of World War II,
in 1948 speech.

"Carob is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate because it has some similar nutrients (calcium, phosphorus),
and because it can, when combined with vegetable fat and sugar, be made to approximate the color and consistency of chocolate. Of course, the same arguments can as persuasively be made in favor of dirt."
--Sandra Boynton

[st_swithin]

"Only when one has learned to acknowledge that wiser minds have made better words to come out of our mouths may we truly, then, begin to speak them." -Honore de Balzac

"I know that there are people in this world who do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that!" -Tom Lehrer

"God is gracious to some very peculiar people." -Wallace Stevens

"Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must live." -Charles Bukowski

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud." -Coco Chanel

"The nature of bad news infects the teller when it concerns the fool or coward." -Shakespeare

"Writers are shmucks with Remingtons." -Hugh King

"Kitten****tenflingen." -Joe Rumsey, in a conversation about the meaning of obfuscation

[Imran Siddiqui]

"To the meaningless French idealisms, of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, we present the German realities of Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery."
- Prince Bernhard von Bulow

That's the best .

"Now the Italians have joined the war on the German side. But that is only fair since we had the the last time."
-Churchill

But Churchill tries for the lead .

"My fellow Americans. I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
-President Reagan, before a scheduled radio broadcast, unaware that the microphone was already on

That was highly amusing. Ronnie was always a cutup... unfortunetly they turned the mic on a bit too soon... funny as Hell though . Not like it bothered him any, it was a great joke .

[Insigna]

I found a place where you can hear the Reagan quote. They say it was a voice test for the microphone.

http://www.yaf.com/Reagan.shtml

[Ned]

One day in the pavilion at Karakorum he [Genghis Kahn] asked an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness.

"The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you," responded the officer after a little thought, "and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares."

"Nay," responded the Kahn, "to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet -- to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best."

[Ned]

Veni, vidi.... Vinci! Julius Caesar

[st_swithin]

vici.

[Ned]

"E tu, Brute?" Caesar as he fell, dying.

[Ned]

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." Julius Caesar to his wife in the Ides of March.

[Ben Kenobi]

First they went after the Jews, but I did nothing.

Then they went after the political dissidents, but I did nothing."


Mr. Fun:

Here's the whole quote,

When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.

Pastor Niemoller

http://www.serendipity.li/cda/niemoll.html

[DRoseDARs]

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"No."
-- Rosa Parks

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
-- Noam Chomsky

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying."
-- Woody Allen

"I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove a thing."
-- Bart Simpson

"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."
--Robert H. Goddard

"The history of man is a graveyard of great cultures that came to catastrophic ends because of their incapacity for planned, rational, voluntary reaction to challenge."
-- Erich Fromm

"A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having his neighbor notice it."
-- Trygve Lie

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggy' until you can find a rock."
-- Unknown

"A day will come when beings shall stand unpon this Earth, as one stands upon a footstool, and laugh as reach out their hands amidst the star."
-- H.G. Wells

"To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that on a vast plain only one stalk of grain shall grow."
-- Metrodoros of Chios

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
-- Mark Twain

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Ned
"E tu, Brute?" Caesar as he fell, dying.

He didn't really say that of course. That's a line from the Shakespeare play. The "nothing to fear..." one may very well be too, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

[Spiffor]

In France, this "historical quote" is taught as "Tu quoque fili" (you too, my son). WTG historical accuracy !

Besides, quite a few quotes I've read here are attributed to Clemenceau in France I guess someone made a witty remark, and every country quickly made believe the leader said it.

Azazel:
Pétain != MSS. The quote is from 1934, 6 whole years before the rout. We didn't defend the Ardennes because our generals were actually believing this crap

[FrustratedPoet]

Besides, quite a few quotes I've read here are attributed to Clemenceau in France I guess someone made a witty remark, and every country quickly made believe the leader said it.

Very true. This probably happens to a few people in all countries, which reminds me of an amusing anecdote on this effect....

Apparently Oscar Wilde was at a party where somebody made an extremely clever and witty joke. Wilde was heard to remark to a friend "I wish I had said that". "Don't worry Oscar," came the reply, "you will, you will."

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Apparently Oscar Wilde was at a party where somebody made an extremely clever and witty joke. Wilde was heard to remark to a friend "I wish I had said that". "Don't worry Oscar," came the reply, "you will, you will."