Leo Tolstoy

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…

I’m like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he’s cold, and his clothes are torn, and he’s ashamed, but he’s not unhappy.

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget…

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.

England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.

He who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it.

History has shown there are no invincible armies.

The Holocaust was a crime without parallel in history, and I am proud to launch an initiative to raise awareness of and to tackle anti-Semitism in all its forms. This is the start of an important journey and we all have a part to play.

Americans Never Quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We Make History.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

To persons uninstructed in natural history, their country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.

The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces – in nature, in society, in man himself.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

How incredible our ancestors were. The first astrophysicists, scientists, physicians, mathematicians, architects, creators of so much of the world as we know it. It’s a blessing to know what cloth you’re cut from!

History teaches us that unity is strength, and cautions us to submerge and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals, to strive, with all our combined strength, for the path to true African brotherhood and unity.