A Quote by Boris Pasternak

No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries.

Boris Pasternak

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Ability Action Agents Cannot Centuries Confine Days Decades Few Field Geniuses Grass Grass Growing Growing History Hours Inspired Just Kings Limited Made Makes Man Men Mind Most Old Order Organic Revolutions See Seen Single Single Man Spirit Takes Themselves Track Upheaval Wars Weeks Whole Years Yeast

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Boris Pasternak
Russian - Novelist
January 29, 1890 - May 30, 1960

No single man makes history. History cannot be seen just as one cannot see grass growing.

Boris Pasternak

If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions on the human mind.

Wilhelm von Humboldt

If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind.

Wilhelm von Humboldt

History suggests that economic upheavals such as the Industrial and Information Revolutions eventually play themselves out and leave the entire world better off.

Max Boot

Revolutions just spread blood. Evolution - this is something that changes in the long term. Because history is long term. But today, we don't talk about history. The past is two weeks ago, and the future is two weeks after.

Marjane Satrapi

Of history, how little do we know by personal contact; we have lived a few years, seen a few men, witnessed some important events; but what are these in the whole sum of the world's past.

Matthew Simpson

Humanity has experienced many revolutionary changes over the course of history: revolutions in agriculture, in science, industrial production, as well as numerous political revolutions. But these have all been limited to the external aspects of our individual and collective lives.

Daisaku Ikeda

The true makes of history are the spiritual men whom the world knew not, the unregarded agents of the creative action of the Spirit. The supreme instance of this-the key to the Christian understanding of history-is to be found in the Incarnation- the presence of the maker of the world in the world unknown to the world. ... The Incarnation is itself in a sense the divine fruit of history-of the fullness of time-and it finds its extension and completion in the historic life of the Church.

Christopher Dawson

The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves

Swami Vivekananda

There's a lot we should be able to learn from history. And yet history proves that we never do. In fact, the main lesson of history is that we never learn the lessons of history. This makes us look so stupid that few people care to read it. They'd rather not be reminded. Any good history book is mainly just a long list of mistakes, complete with names and dates. It's very embarrassing.

A. Whitney Brown

(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.

Bertrand Russell

Just as the world cannot live on wars, so people cannot on revolutions

Adolf Hitler

We should all be aware of the fact that when revolutionary - not evolutionary - changes come, things can get even worse. The intelligentsia should be aware of this. And it is the intelligentsia specifically that should keep this in mind and prevent society from radical steps and revolutions of all kinds. We've had enough of it. We've seen so many revolutions and wars. We need decades of calm and harmonious development.

Vladimir Putin

Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in.... The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.

Jane Austen

Alexander the Great changed a few boundaries and killed a few men. Both he and Napoleon were forced into fame by circumstances outside of themselves and by currents of the time, but Margaret Sanger made currents and circumstances. When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine.

H. G. Wells

Marx says that revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But the situation may be quite different. Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake.

Walter Benjamin

A Quote by Boris Pasternak

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