History Quotes
The only thing we have to Shmoop are quotes themselves.
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECTHistory Quotes
Politicians say the darndest things. Click on any History quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
For more History quotes, head on over to our History section, choose a topic, click Facts in the navigation, and then choose Quotes.
"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."Source: Quoted in The Gospel According to Coco Chanel : Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman (2009) | Speaker: Coco Chanel
"And they brought us whole binders full of women."Source: 2012 Presidential Debate | Speaker: Mitt Romney
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."Source: The Dalai Lama's visit to Capitol Hill | Speaker: Dalai Lama
"Do not call for Black power or green power. Call for brain power."Source: Campus Speeches, Quoted in the Chicago Tribune | Author: Barbara Jordan
"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"Source: Battle of Bunker Hill | Speaker: William Prescott
"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."Source: 1896 Letter to Booker T. Washington | Author: George Washington Carver
"Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world."Source: 2003 Speech | Speaker: Nelson Mandela
"Give me but one firm spot on which to stand and I will move the earth."Source: The Law of the Lever | Speaker: Archimedes
"Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions."Source: Unknown | Speaker: Dalai Lama
"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."Source: Stanford Commencement Speech (2005) | Speaker: Steve Jobs
"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful."Source: The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci | Author: Leonardo da Vinci
"I have not yet begun to fight."Source: Spoken on September 23, 1779 | Speaker: Captain John Paul Jones
"I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom."Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | Author: Frederick Douglass
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."Source: Spoken before his death | Speaker: Nathan Hale
"I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters—two beautiful, intelligent, Black young women—playing with their dogs on the White House lawn."Source: 2016 Democratic National Convention Speech | Speaker: Michelle Obama
"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light."Source: Question and Answer Session | Speaker: Helen Keller
"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."Source: "Failure," a Nike TV Commercial | Speaker: Michael Jordan
"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."Source: Quoted in Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets (1971) | Speaker: Coco Chanel
"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."Source: 1965 Speech | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher
"In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes."Source: Art exhibit at the Moderna Museet | Author: Andy Warhol
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."Source: 1965 TV Broadcast | Speaker: J. Robert Oppenheimer
"Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation."Source: My Life with Martin Luther King Jr. | Author: Coretta Scott King
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."Source: First Moon Landing | Speaker: Neil Armstrong
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart."Source: The Story of My Life | Author: Helen Keller
"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."Source: The New Yorker | Author: Hannah Arendt
"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall."Source: Libération | Speaker: Che Guevara
"There is no such thing [as society]!"Source: Interview with Woman's Own magazine in 1987 | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us."Source: Speech at the Audubon Ballroom | Speaker: Malcolm X
"We have met the enemy and they are ours."Source: Letter to William Henry Harrison | Author: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry
"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice."Source: "The Celebration of Negro History Week" in The Journal of Negro History | Author: Carter G. Woodson
"You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything."Source: "Building a Dream" in Oprah Magazine | Speaker: Oprah Winfrey