Arthur Koestler Quotes

Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

If you look at art history, at Goya or Gainsborough, it's always about acknowledging the people of your time who have influence.

We must be proud of not being needles and threads in the hands of fate as it sews the motley cloth of history.... We know that this cloth is not sewn without us.... And that is not all. We can change the pattern of the carpet.

The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Making history does not necessarily change history.

Men make history, not the other way around.

The lives of heroes have enriched history, and history has adorned the actions of heroes ; and thus I cannot say whether the historians are more indebted to those who provided them with such noble materials, or those great men to their historians.

This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, for instance. Bismark. Lenin.

People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

Universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.

I'm a history person; I love history. But I am conditioned by the present.

I love history. It was the only thing I did well at in school. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was not a good student but I was great at history.

In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.

History contains little beyond a list of people who have accommodate themselves with other people's property.

The past is always with us, for it feeds the present.

One vote, one act or one person can change the course of history. I also thought of the lawyers who daily and tirelessly labor in the vineyards of justice - men and women who represent their clients with integrity, ethics and professionalism, and who think nothing of it as that is what lawyers do. Yet, often these individuals are the very people who change the world.

The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power.

When I was a kid, I thought history was the most boring subject of all. I shouldn't blame my teachers; I should blame me, but I'll blame them.

This idea [standardized time zones] was first advanced and fought for by Sandford Fleming of Canada and Charles F. Dowd of the United States. I mention them chiefly because like so many benefactors of mankind they have been rewarded by total obscurity.

People have to look to the right places for guidance. Looking at a certain type of entertainment shouldn't be where you go for guidance. To zone out, have a laugh, sure - but it's not a great example on how to navigate on a journey. There are other places to look.

I came to feel as protective of Elijah as Sam does of Frodo .. In turn, Elijah helped me discover a lot about myself and I literally might not have survived the journey had this young prince of an actor not taken me under his wing.

As a profession advertising is young; as a force it is as old as the world.

If I could have dinner with anyone who lived in history, it would depend on the restaurant.

History is the propaganda of the victors.

It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins.