Teaching History Quotes

Teaching history to eighth graders is like being a tour guide for people who hate their vacation. ~ Chuck Klosterman

History does seem to repeat itself hence it's mindboggling to still hear the 'avoid all negative people' speeches from, of all people, supposedly important spiritual teachers. Ironically, their congregations would probably be the ones hiding their faces from the accuracies of truth speakers like Christ. Now, Christ was the complete opposite of negative, however the danger is that truth is often misunderstood as negativity by those who are constantly taught to only seek flattery. ~ Criss Jami

To teach effectively a teacher must develop a feeling for his subject; he cannot make his students sense its vitality if he does not sense it himself. He cannot share his enthusiasm when he has no enthusiasm to share. How he makes his point may be as important as the point he makes; he must personally feel it to be important. ~ George Polya

My younger sister retired a few years ago after a 30-year career teaching history and social studies at an inner-city high school. ~ Judy Woodruff

Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States' initial or baptismal experience in nation-building. ~ Miguel Syjuco

Few teachers realize that the purpose of teaching history is not the memorizing of some dates and facts, that the student is not interested in knowing the exact date of a battle or the birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all - or at least only very insignificantly - interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers was placed on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon as important matters. To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as ~ Adolf Hitler

By the time a kid goes to college, if he's taking math or science, at least he knows, or you hope he knows, some basics. But if you're teaching history in college, you have a lot of damage to undo. You basically have to start over because so much of what a kid has already learned is just wrong. ~ Chris Crutcher

The reason for teaching history is not that it changes society, but that it changes pupils; it changes what they see in the world, and how they see it ... To say someone has learnt history is to say something very wide ranging about the way in which he or she is likely to make sense of the world. History offers a way of seeing almost any substantive issue in human affairs, subject to certain procedures and standards, whatever feelings one may have. ~ Peter Lee

What are called the middle schools is still very unsatisfactory. Few teachers realize that the purpose of teaching history is not the memorizing of some dates and facts, that the student is not interested in knowing the exact date of a battle or the birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all - or at least only very insignificantly - interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers was placed on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon as important matters. ~ Adolf Hitler

I think there's only one [thing] that anybody teaches, and this is character. And I think that whether you are teaching history, math, or biology, or music, what you are really doing is, you are helping to shape the character of that person who is your student ... Music is such a wonderful teaching tool, because while you are developing musical skills, that student can learn a lot about discipline [and] cooperation. ~ Rich Mullins

It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching. ~ Douglas Hurd

It is a well known fact that Abraham Lincoln spent much of his spare time visiting wounded soldiers in Union Army hospitals. I've spent thirty years teaching history at Columbia and I don't think I've spent more than fifteen minutes in the freshman dorm. Are we the ones keeping Lincoln's memory alive? Or are we burying it? ~ Eric Foner

The church will not be judged by the number of baptisms or upon the size of its membership, but upon how faithful it has been to teaching the whole counsel of God. ~ Jeffrey D. Johnson

The roe of the Russian sturgeon has probably been present at more important international affairs than have all the Russian dignitaries of history combined. This seemingly simple article of diet has taken its place in the world along with pearls, sables, old silver, and Cellini cups. ~ James Beard

I am the son of two civilizations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven thousand years old, is the Pharaonic civilization; the second, one thousand four hundred years old, is the Islamic civilization. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

The best blended Scotch in the history of the world - which was also the favourite drink of the Iraqi Baath Party, as it still is of the Palestinian Authority and the Libyan dictatorship and large branches of the Saudi Arabian royal family - is Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast of champions, accept no substitute. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Just as bank tellers need a thorough knowledge of legitimate currency in order to spot counterfeit bills, so Christians need a thorough knowledge of the Bible in order to spot bogus religious teachings. How grounded are you in the Scriptures? How deep are your theological roots? How capable are you of detecting false teachings? ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Spread your arms out to your sides, like a plane. Your wingspan is a timeline. Your left fingertip represents the time of the first single-celled life on earth. And your right fingertip is right this minute. Between the two is 3.7 billion years of time, the history of life on earth.

From your left fingertip, all the way up your arm, past your left shoulder, across your chest, and past your right shoulder, life on earth is nothing but bacteria. By the time you reach your right wrist, the most impressive form of life on earth, the king of beasts, is the worm. In the middle of your right palm you finally get your dinosaurs, and they're extinct by your last finger joint.

Run your eyes along that history again so far. All that history, all that life, and still no appearance by the Main Attraction, the species for whom everything is supposedly made - humankind.

So when do humans finally show up at the party? Well it's more than fashionably late. Homo sapiens fits in one fingernail clipping. ~ Dale McGowan

Donald Trump believed that the whole history of trade agreements, most of which I've supported over the years, have not been effective, and I've come to believe he's right. ~ Jeff Sessions

History has proven time and again that downturns are the best time to invest in new start-ups. You get good deals and find a better environment for start-ups to grow. ~ Steve Jurvetson

When you get to know some of the history of the game, Oscar Robertson is one of the names that pops up first. ~ LeBron James

I hated the lost colony; in second grade, we were doing American History, and they said, We don't know what happened to them. That drove me nuts. That lost colony drove me crazy. ~ Sarah Vowell

Fire makes it possible for us to text, and tweet, and email, and Instagram, and Facebook, and socially be dysfunctional with each other. Fire makes that possible, and de Chardin said fire was one of the great discoveries in all of human history. He went on to say if humanity ever harnesses the energy of fire again, if humanity ever captured the energies of love, it will be the second time in the history that will have discovered fire. ~ Michael Curry

Cutting a tree down doesn't kill it; it erases it from history. ~ The Wombat

There is no pride in a masculinst history that deprives half of humanity a pride of place, the dignity of who and what they are. ~ Hamid Dabashi

It is a hard thing to let your children near danger, and yet, I remember my Papa teaching me to fire a rifle before I could even hold it with my own strength. And if he hadn't trusted me to be careful, I would have never had faith in myself to do it. ~ Nancy E. Turner

The object [Duchamp's Fountain] was rejected , giving Duchamp the opportunity of issuing a statement, which he published in a review, The Blind Man. In his statement he emphasized that the act of choice was sufficient to justify it as a creative art. Placing it in such a way that its normal use was disguised caused a new reality for the object to be invented. To the criticism that it was rude he replied, logically enough,How could this object be acceptable when displayed in a plumber's shop window and yet be immoral anywhere else? ~ Neville Weston

If other people thought art was important, then it would be required to graduate. But no, I don't have to take art. I do have to take math, which is just a waste of time because the numbers get all switched up in my brain, plus, calculators exist for a reason. I do have to take history, which is basically memorizing tariff acts till your brain bleeds. I do have to take four years of gym class with a bunch of jerks who punch me if they don't like what I say. But art? Optional. Even though art and music and literature and all that are what make us human. Algebra doesn't make us human. Games don't make us human. ~ Laura Ruby

Man's history is woven into waterways, for not only did he live beside them, but he used them as highways for hunting, exploration, and trade. Water assured his welfare, its absence meant migration or death, its constancy nourished his spirit. A mountain, a desert, or a great forest might serve his need of strength, but water reflects his inner needs. ~ Sigurd F. Olson

What must strike any intelligent witch or wizard on studying the so-called history of the Elder Wand is that every man who claims to have owned it has insisted that it is "unbeatable," when the known facts of its passage through many owners' hands demonstrate that has it not only been beaten hundreds of times, but that it also attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat attracted flies. ~ J.K. Rowling

History has tried hard to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of the government couldn't be wise. ~ Mark Twain

Everything teaches, whether you intend it to or not. The songs teach people doctrine and proper affections for God. Your prayers (or lack of them) teach people how to pray themselves. The kinds of prayers you pray (or don't pray) teach people about the important differences between prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. The way you administer the ordinances teaches people about their meaning, and even the very meaning of the Gospel. Your preaching teaches people how to study and use the Bible appropriately. Everything from the call to worship to the benediction counts as teaching. Teaching is everything. ~ Mark Dever

There's too much history in York, the past is so crowded that sometimes it feels as if there's no room for the living. ~ Kate Atkinson

The economic interpretation of history does not necessarily mean that all events are determined solely by economic forces. It simply means that economic facts are the ever recurring decisive forces, the chief points in the process of history. ~ Eduard Bernstein

Yet in his own estimate, one theme in particular dominated all others: the growing tyranny of the majority, the ever-increasing and most formidable barriers raised by the majority around the free expression of opinion, and, as a result, the frightening oneness of American thinking, the absence of eccentricity and divergence from the norm.

A perfect liberty of the Mind exists in America, said Tocqueville, just as long as the sovereign majority has yet to decide its course. But once the majority has made up its mind, then all contrary thought must cease, and all controversy must be abandoned, not at the risk of death or physical punishment, but rather at the more subtle and more intolerable pain of ostracism, of being shunned by one's fellows, of being rejected by society.

Throughout history kings and princely rulers had sought without success to control human thought, that most elusive and invisible power of all. Yet where absolute monarchs had failed, democracy succeeds, for the strength of the majority is unlimited and all pervasive, and the doctrines of equality and majority rule have substituted for the tyranny of the few over the many the more absolute, imperious and widely accepted tyranny of the many over the few. ~ Richard D. Heffner

THE DEVIL. As far as I went, yes. But I will now go further, and confess to you that men get tired of everything, of heaven no less than of hell; and that all history is nothing but a record of the oscillations of the world between these two extremes. An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is progressing because it is always moving. But when you are as old as I am; when you have a thousand times wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, and a thousand times wearied of hell, as you are wearied now, you will no longer imagine that every swing from heaven to hell is an emancipation, every swing from hell to heaven an evolution. Where you now see reform, progress, fulfilment of upward tendency, continual ascent by Man on the stepping stones of his dead selves to higher things, you will see nothing but an infinite comedy of illusion.... ~ George Bernard Shaw

I don't teach. I just show them why to learn, what to learn, how to learn, and the ultimate purpose of learning. ~ Debasish Mridha

Kids born today will see us navigate past the first greatest test of humanity, which is: can we actually be smart enough to live on a planet without destroying it? ~ Alex Steffen

The Truth can set us free. ~ James W. Loewen

I wanted to go into art history. Acting fell into my lap when a neighbor took pictures of me and showed them to an agent. ~ Eva Mendes

I don't like dynasty and legacy. But I think there's a period in the U.S. history where Bushes have been in the forefront. ~ George H. W. Bush

Pupils may learn many things when a teacher is not in fact teaching. ~ Paul Q. Hirst

Socrates (770-399 B.C.[E.]) is possibly the most enigmatic figure in the entire history of philosophy. He never wrote a single line. Yet he is one of the philosophers who has had the greatest influence on European thought, not least because of the dramatic manner of his death. ~ Jostein Gaarder

America has always imported history. ~ Helmut Jahn

And how would he learn his history now? Imagine growing up in a world where only generals and geniuses, empires and companies, had histories, not your own town or grandfather, house or Samantha - none of the things you'd loved. ~ William H Gass

If there were nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough to send him with his wreath to the memory of all future time, that he endured that hour, that day, bitterer than gall - indeed a crucifixion day - that it did not conquer him - that he unflinchingly stemmed it, and resolved to lift himself and the Union out of it. ~ Walt Whitman

In fact, these reference works, with their careful attention to history, literature, and actual usage, are the most adamant debunkers of grammatical nonsense. (This is less true of style sheets drawn up by newspapers and professional societies, and of manuals written by amateurs such as critics and journalists, which tend to mindlessly reproduce the folklore of previous guides.) ~ Steven Pinker

I remember that throughout history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always ... whenever you are in doubt that that is God's way - the way the world is meant to be. Think of that and then try to do His way. ~ Jean Vanier

The journey had been long and dangerous, and along the way he had met countless travelers, many of whom were so amazing that they must certainly rank among the most original and memorable characters in the history of recorded literature. Which is why it's so sad that there's no time to describe them. ~ Jason Carter Eaton

In order for the brain to comprehend the heart must first listen. ~ David Perkins

In the field of Artificial Intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human. It is fitting that such an important landmark has been reached at the Royal Society in London, the home of British Science and the scene of many great advances in human understanding over the centuries. This milestone will go down in history as one of the most exciting. ~ Kevin Warwick

Though all the Protestant denominations have historically condemned the veneration of holy objects (relics) and their use in healing, the Catholic church - until recently - preferred to depend entirely upon the magical qualities attributed to the possessions or actual physical parts of various saints and biblical characters for healing. The Vatican not only permitted but encouraged this practice, which entered history in the third century. Catholic churches and private collections still overflow with hundreds of thousands of items. Included are pieces of the True Cross (enough to build a few log cabins), bones of the children slain by King Herod, the toenails and bones of St. Peter, the bones of the Three Wise Kings and of St. Stephen (as well as his complete corpse, including another complete skeleton!), jars of the Virgin Mary's milk, the bones and several entire heads and pieces thereof that were allegedly once atop John the Baptist, 16 foreskins of Christ, Mary Magdalene's entire skeleton (with two right feet), scraps of bread and fish left over from feeding the 5,000, a crust of bread from the Last Supper, and a hair from Christ's beard - not to mention a few shrouds, including the one at Turin. ~ James Randi

If you do not regard the great confessions and catechisms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as being biblical in their teaching on justification, then you should probably do the decent thing and become a Catholic. ~ Anonymous

My destiny has been that I remember and must weave together, must plait into one cable the many threads, the thin, the thick, the broken, the enduring of our long history, of our tumultuous and varied day. There is always more to be understood; a discord to be listened for; a falsity to be reprimanded. ~ Virginia Woolf

I remember watching rioters in Panama, for example, smashing shop windows, allegedly in the name of freedom and democracy, but laughing as they did so, searching for new fields of glass to conquer. Many of the rioters were obviously bourgeois, the scions of privileged families, as have been the leaders of so many destructive movements in modern history. That same evening, I dined in an expensive restaurant and saw there a fellow diner whom I had observed a few hours before joyfully heaving a brick through a window. How much destruction did he think his country could bear before his own life might be affected, his own existence compromised? ~ Theodore Dalrymple