Russian History Quotes

Not long ago, after my last trip to Russia, I had a conversation with an American very eminent in the field of politics. I asked what he read, and he replied that he studied history, sociology, politics and law.

"How about fiction - novels, plays poetry?" I asked.

"No," he said, "I have never had time for them. There's so much else I have to read."

I said, "Sir, I have recently visited Russia for the third time and don't know how well I understand Russians; but I do know that if I only read Russian history I could not have had the access to Russian thinking I have had from reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin, Turgenev, Sholokhov, and Ehrenburg. History only recounts, with some inaccuracy, what they did. The fiction tells, or tries to tell, why they did it and what they felt and were like when they did it."

My friend nodded gravely. "I hadn't though of that," he said. "Yes, that might be so; I had always thought of fiction as opposed to fact."

But in considering the American past, how poor we would be in information without Huckleberry Fin, An American Tragedy, Winesburg, Ohio, Main Street, The Great Gatsby, and As I Lay Dying. ~ John Steinbeck

The elaborate and rather flexible political police system established in Russia in the early 1880s was unique in at least two respects. Before the First World War no other country in the world had two kinds of police, one to protect the state and another to protect its citizens. Only a country with a deeply rooted patrimonial mentality could have devised such a dualism. Secondly, unlike other countries, where the police served as an arm of the law and was required to turn over all arrested persons to the judiciary, in imperial Russia and there alone police organs were exempt from this obligation. ~ Richard Pipes

Besides numerous science courses, I had the opportunity to study philosophy, the history of architecture, economics, and Russian history in courses taught by extraordinarily knowledgeable professors. ~ Stanley B. Prusiner

Historians usually focus their attention on the past of countries that still exist, writing hundreds and thousands of books on British history, French history, German history, Russian history, American history, Chinese history, Indian history, Brazilian history or whatever. Whether consciously or not, they are seeking the roots of the present, thereby putting themselves in danger of reading history backwards. As soon as great powers arise, whether the United States in the twentieth century or China in the twenty-first, the call goes out for offerings on American History or Chinese History, and siren voices sing that today's important countries are also those whose past is most deserving of examination, that a more comprehensive spectrum of historical knowledge can be safely ignored. ~ Norman Davies

With a rumble and a roar, an iron curtain is descending on Russian history. ~ Vasily Rozanov

Potemkin suffered bitterly from having nothing left to want. For when dreams turn into reality, there is an empty spot where the dreams used to be, and Potemkin had no dreams left. ~ Eleanor Herman

I have great love and respect for Russian history and culture. But the world is changing and Russia is too. Russia is part of the modern world, not the world of the past but the modern world. And I believe it has an even greater future than some other countries that can't take care of their young people, of the new generations, of their children, and believe that they can just let things slide. ~ Vladimir Putin

What? Read more Russian history? It's bloody and it's tragic and best served with a lot of vodka. Trust me. ~ Heather Long

I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives. ~ Kathryn Harrison

I grew up reading the classic novels of Cold War espionage, and I studied Russian history and Soviet foreign policy. ~ Daniel Silva

In Rome, I particularly love the history, churches, sculptures and architecture and the fact that you can walk along a tiny cobbled street and turn the corner to find the Trevi Fountain. London is evocative of other eras and full of history. ~ Philip Treacy

Damascus, is simply an oasis, that is what it is. For four thousand years its waters have not gone dry or its fertility failed. Now we can understand why the city has existed so long. It could not die. So long as its waters remain to it away out there in the midst of that howling desert, so long will Damascus live to bless the sight of the tired and thirsty wayfarer.
"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own orange flower, O Damascus, the pearl of the East!". ~ Mark Twain

I am a part of history whether people want to take it seriously or not. ~ Cher

When I was twelve years old, I looked in the mirror and I saw what I perceived to be my faults and my mother's faults. These coalesced into a dark mark that I would carry through my life, a coating of what I saw, which came from others' hatred of me, and all this forested a hatred of myself. I thought being unwanted and abandoned and persecuted was the legacy of the poor southern Black woman. But as an adult, I see my mother's legacy anew. I see how all the burdens she bore, the burdens of her history and identity and of our country's history and identity , enable her to manifest her greatest gifts. My mother had the courage to look at four hungry children and find a way to fill them. My mother had the strength to work her body to its breaking point to provide for herself and her children. My mother had the residence to cobble together a family from the broken bits of another. And my mother's example teaches me other things: This how a transplanted people survived a holocaust and slavery. This is how Black people in the South organized to vote under the shadow of terrorism and the noose. This is how human begins sleep and wake and fight and survive. In the end, this is a how a mother teaches her daughter to have courage, to have strength, to be resilient, to open her eyes to what it is, and to make something of it. ~ Jesmyn Ward

I figure...

...that the people are now more deeply conscious than ever before in history of the existence and functioning principles of universal, inexorable physical laws; of the pervading, quietly counseling truth within each and every one of us; of the power of love; and--each man by himself--of his own developing, dynamic relationship with his own conception of the Almightiness of the All-Knowing.

...that our contemporaries just don't wear their faith on their sleeves anymore.

...that people have removed faith from their sleeves because they found out for themselves that faith is much too important for careless display. Now they are willing to wait out the days and years for the truthful events, encouraged individually from within; and the more frequently the dramatic phrases advertising love, patriotism, fervent belief, morals, and good fellowship are plagiarized, appropriated and exhibited in the show windows of the world by the propaganda whips for indirect and ulterior motives, no matter how meager the compromise--the more do people withdraw within themselves and shun taking issue with the nauseating perversions, though eternally exhibiting quiet indifference, nonchalance or even cultivating seemingly ignorant acceptance. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

If there is one leader to whom most Chinese people express gratitude for improvements in their daily lives, it is Deng Xiaoping. Did any other leader in the twentieth century do more to improve the lives of so many? Did any other twentieth-century leader have such a large and lasting influence on world history? ~ Ezra F. Vogel

There was a time in American history when almost every white person knew who Aretha Franklin was. ~ Peabo Bryson

I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper ~ Katherine "Kitty" Howard

Today's coastal development along with hurricane amnesia places modern man on a collision course with catastrophe if the lessons of history are ignored. ~ Max Mayfield

I do not approve of naval historians who seek out flaws in the losers' battle plans and tactics. The way to profit from history is to put oneself in the shoes of the tactical decision maker as he confronts a many-faceted problem in an atmosphere of uncertainty. ~ Wayne Hughes

I'm a conservative but not because I care very much about the marginal tax rates of the richest Americans, rather I'm a market-oriented localist because I believe in cultural pluralism and I believe in the First Amendment, in voluntarism over compulsion whenever possible, and in as much de-centralized decision-making as is conceivably feasible. ~ Ben Sasse

Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can only be doubted by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or plain bigotry. ~ Theodosius Dobzhansky

Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection. ~ Watchman Nee

History is us squinting into the past, mistaking millions of tiny vibrations in all directions for unified, unidirectional movements by entire civilizations. ~ Joseph Fink

Though Julian could be marvelously kind in difficult circumstances of all sorts, I sometimes got the feeling that he was less pleased by kindness itself than by the elegance of the gesture. ~ Donna Tartt

Man is an historical animal, with a deep sense of his own past; and if he cannot integrate the past by a history explicit and true, he will integrate it by a history implicit and false. ~ Geoffrey Barraclough

Although I think the word "pleasure" is unknown to you. More precisely, its practical meaning". #MilanoVeneziani. #ItalianPassion ~ Olga Goa

No intelligent person, the sophisticated pagan might have explained, actually worshiped images of the gods, or worshiped living emperors; instead, the gods' images - and the images of the emperors themselves - provided an accessible focus for revering the cosmic forces they represented. ~ Elaine Pagels

One Archeology and Decipherment
Two History: Heroes, Kings, and Ensi's
Three Society: The Sumerian City
Four Religion: Theology, Rite, and Myth
Five Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres
Six Education: The Sumerian School
Seven Character: Drives, Motives, and Values
Eight The Legacy of Sumer
APPENDIXES
A. The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing
B. The Sumerian Language
C. Votive Inscriptions
D. Sample Date-Formulas
E. Sumerian King List
F. Letters
G. Dit lla's (court decisions)
H. Lipit-Ishtar Law Code
1. Farmers' Almanac
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ~ Samuel Noah Kramer

My dreams had to be His dreams, the ones He placed in my heart. They couldn't be the ones I thought I should have, or needed for the purpose of making other people like me. ~ Stormie O'martian

I can't tell you how terribly glad I am that you're going to be all right," George said, rather thickly. "I...I wouldn't know how to act without a twin. ~ Sarah Brazytis

The Russians were all really accommodating, and that made it really special. To be allowed in Catherine's Summer Palace ... Lily [James] and I have this scene where we fall in love and we waltz up and down this enormous gold hall with thousands of candles and a live orchestra and 300 Russian extras. To do those scenes in situ really meant it was a once-in-a-lifetime job. ~ James Norton

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The real history never makes the books; ~ April White

As we walk on the stage of human agency otherwise known as history, we should remember that ours are but bit-parts, to be played only momentarily before we move on. The characters may change but the paradigm remains, every generation being the inheritor of the role of Hamlet, yearning and looking for lost fathers, weary of becoming broken men themselves. ~ Farish A. Noor

Bulls don't read. Bears read financial history. As markets fall to bits, the bears dust off the Dutch tulip mania of 1637, the Banque Royale of 1719-20, the railway speculation of the 1840s, the great crash of 1929. ~ James Buchan

All the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy, until Hari Seldon, and very few men thereafter, could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located - so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation - there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man. ~ Isaac Asimov

I have since wondered, of course, how my life would have been different if I'd decided to stay home that morning. This is what's called the enigma of history, and it can drive you out of your mind if you let it. ~ Annie Barrows

Megeara wants to find it. (Arik)
And people in hell want ice water. The entire history of mankind is written by people wanting something they can't have. (Kat) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

History was a tangled thing, people were resilient, and the one constant law of the world was that it would heal. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

An ordinary potato has had more value than gold several times in history. ~ K.R. Royal

It's better for us all to die together, proud, than have them discredit us and take us apart and make us look like a bunch of crazy people," he said. "What do you think everybody committing suicide will look like?" Stephan wanted to know. "Well, at first, maybe they'll think we're crazy," Jones said. "But it's going to go down in history as a great act. ~ Tim Reiterman

You're not the first black woman Alex has hired to work for her family, and you probably won't be the last.'

'Okay...?' Emira sat down. She didn't mean to sound flippant, but she doubted that Kelley could really tell her anything she didn't already know. Emira had met several 'Mrs. Chamberlains' before...It wasn't that Emira didn't understand the racially charged history that Kelley was alluding to, but she couldn't help but think that if she weren't working for this Mrs. Chamberlain, she'd probably be working for another one. ~ Kiley Reid

They would never forget the war. The world wouldn't let them, and neither would history. ~ Lee Strauss

It is impossible for any single medium to fully capture the emotion and intensity of war. The Battlefield 3: The Russian novel is one window into the experience, and the game is another. They complement each other perfectly, ~ Andy McNab

[...] throughout the whole history of science most of the really great discoveries which had ultimately proved to be beneficial to mankind had been made by men and women who were driven not by the desire to be useful but merely teh desire to satisfy their curiosity ~ Abraham Flexner