Top 1200 Historical Figure Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

I think Steve Jobs is a historic figure. He's not only a historic figure in business, but really in America.

Figure out what you believe in and what you're willing to fight for, then figure out what your special talents are and apply them to it.

But here's the deal: If I were smart, I could figure out curling. If I were even smarter, I could figure out why people would actually watch other people doing it. I have tried. I can't. I can't even figure out the object of the game. Is it like darts? I just don't get it.

Before turning 32 is an amazing time to do radical things. You figure out who you are while you figure out who you are not.

So much of my work is defined by the difference between the figure in the foreground and the background. Very early in my career, I asked myself, "What is that difference?" I started looking at the way that a figure in the foreground works in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European paintings and saw how much has to do with what the figure owns or possesses. I wanted to break away from that sense in which there's the house, the wife, and the cattle, all depicted in equal measure behind the sitter.

History buffs expect historical background in historical fiction. Mystery readers expect forensics and police procedure in crime fiction. Westerns - gasp - describe the West. Techno-thriller readers expect to learn something about technology from their fiction.

John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.

I have to write three books a year to make a reasonable living out of writing - unless, of course, she gets a major American film deal. Phryne has been optioned since the very first book, but to make a historical TV movie, it costs $30,000 a day extra for the historical detail to be correct, so most people aren't doing it.

All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.

Male figure skating is different than female figure skating; we're not America's sweetheart.

It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same for love.

Africans and persons of African descent must assume the primary responsibility and leadership in historical research....if we are to continue to leave practically all important historical research and writing concerning the black race to the white man, then we must be prepared to accept, uncomplainingly, the white man's point of view.

Being poor sucks... It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month.

There are dozens of writings outside of the Bible that verify the historical accuracy of many of the names of people, places, and events mentioned in the Bible. In fact, external sources verify that at least eighty persons mentioned in the Bible were actual historical figures. Fifty people from the Old Testament, and thirty people from the New Testament.

In Haitian mythology there is the figure Ghede, who in West Africa, is Iku, whose role is to show "each man his devil." He's represented by a figure wearing a top hat and smoking a cigar. That's my gig.

Depending on your figure, you may use clothes and colours to highlight your assets or otherwise. Darker shades always make you look slimmer while bright colours or prints can highlight your figure. Using colours to enhance your look is the easiest and smartest way to play with your figure.

There is no point trying to figure out who is guilty or not at un-balancing the planet. I think we need to figure out and solve the problems together and not isolate from each other.

I try to figure my adjusted gross income, but no matter how I figure it, it's still gross.

First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn't the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.

You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and universal figure and still keep it living and real.

Dave Van Ronk is not an obscure figure. He's the biggest figure on an obscure scene, playing a kind of niche music that we knew and liked.

It is a great pity when the one who should be the head figure is a mere figure head.

I was trained as a philosopher never to put philosophers and their ideas into historical contexts, since historical context has nothing to do with the validity of the philosopher's positions. I agree that assessing validity and contextualizing historically are two entirely distinct matters and not to be confused with one another. And yet that firm distinction doesn't lead me to endorse the usual way in which history of philosophy is presented.

Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.

Africa is going through its own historical process of state formation just as Europe and America did. It is just happening much later than other continents because of the interruption of Africa's own historical development by the colonization of Africa by Europe.

Later, I went one step further, by putting in some invented "historical" bits [into the Lincoln in the Bardo]. And reading those alongside the actual historical bits was like looking into a sort of a painful mirror, because "my" parts were so show-offy at first. They stood out because they were so flamboyant.

With every year that passes, I get further away from my target audience, and while I've been happy to think of myself as a father figure to these kids, I'd be a little distressed to be thought of as a grandfather figure.

Truman Capote was a pop figure, but it wasn't until he went on David Susskind's show and had that extraordinary voice and manner that everyone could imitate, that he really took off as a figure.

If you write a book set in the past about something that happened east of the Mississippi, it's a 'historical novel.' If you write about something that took place west of the Mississippi, it's a 'Western'- and somehow regarded as a lesser work. I write historical novels about the frontier.

So we've done science songs. We've done historical songs. A lot of people would like us to do more historical songs. Our history record would probably be like the people's history of the United States, set to music.

My father combined many of the elements that were feared in the culture, but also he was a warm figure, a figure we needed. We depended on him to give us a little bit of strength and courage.

The superhero is a really popular figure in the West. In Asia or Korea, the young viewers are amused by the figure, but it is not really so sensational.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month.

Historical romance is still very strong in the market. Writers of historical romance are making the bestselling lists on a regular basis and careers are growing. However, since there is much more variety in romance today, the total sales of historicals might be down from their peak. The talk of the market softening is a reflection of this, and of the fact that one does not see big growth in this area of the market.

You can always change your branding or hire lawyers, but it's critical that you figure out if you have product market fit, and if you don't, figure out how to course-correct without getting stuck.

I'm starting to figure it out - figure out my spots, where I should be on the court, where I'm most effective, and how I handle double teams - and it's paying off.

The popularity of figure skating has increased tremendously, and Koreans have a huge interest in figure skaters - not only me, other international skaters as well.

My ego is nothing - look what Alexander the Great achieved. And I felt he was a figure outside time, a figure we don't even understand, because he's frankly pre-Christian, and his concepts of honor go back to Homer.

I think there is too much attention on mentoring. If people want to be scientists, they will figure out how to do it. They need to figure it out by themselves.

I was given an incredible gift growing up in the Chelsea, a space where it is completely fine to be yourself - you just had to figure out what that was. You didn't have to figure that out in the face of opposition at every turn.

In a clown, we see what we do that makes us laugh and cry. I kept the white face, the tradition of the Pierrot. My clown became a romantic and stylized figure. I wanted to be an abstract and concrete figure, a symbol of humanity.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

The camera can represent flesh so superbly that, if I dared, I would never photograph a figure without asking that figure to take its clothes off.

[T]he visibility of styles is itself a product of historical consciousness. ... The very notion of "style" needs to be approached historically. Awareness of style as a problematic and isolable element in a work of art has emerged in the audience for art only at certain historical moments - as a front behind which other issues, ultimately ethical and political, are being debated.

If you start off as a fearsome figure in pop culture, it's almost axiomatic that at some point, years under the lights softens you into a cuddly family figure.

I never thought, as a kid, that I'd have an action figure, much less an action figure sold in a two-pack with Jake The Snake.

A figure skater is not just a figure skater who does great jumps. He is an artist on ice.

I had a tough time fitting in, as I guess most kids do. I felt like school was kind of a grand opportunity to figure yourself out and to figure out what you wanted.

This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories nature presents to us is the inheritance of biology from The Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by theory, historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion.

I actually thought Pope Paul VI was the most tragic figure in the modern church, like Lyndon Johnson was a very tragic figure in politics in some ways.

We're all like detectives. We want to figure things out. Life, you know, we want to figure out life, and we want to figure out what's going on, so it's beautiful. It's beautiful that people are thinking.

It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it.

My advice to anyone is to figure out what you're good at - what it is that you love doing the most in life - and figure out a way to make a living from it.

I am not a political figure. The fact is I am a humanitarian figure and always will be.

For film, I think because it's more detailed, and especially with historical material, you really have to find the right projects. Speaking as a mixed-race woman, there aren't many historical stories about people like me. When people think of 'dual heritage,' they think it's a modern concept, but really it's not.

The annual award of $5,000 goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers--particularly new authors--to focus on historical fiction. He hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world.

Figure out what you love to do, then figure out how to get paid to do it.

Well, it is curious what lasts and what doesn't. Publishing empires and whatnot would pay anything to figure it out. But they can't figure it out.

Ranger removed my goggles "Would you like to come home with me?" I stepped away from him. "Thank you for the offer, but no. I'm done with men." Ranger smiled. "Forever?" "Until I figure some things out." "And if you don't figure them out?" "If I can't figure them out on my own, I'll ask you to help me." "Babe, that's like the blind leading the blind.