Anna Howard Shaw Quotes

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

What I am is a thinking, feeling human being compelled by history.

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

A nation is a historical group of men of recognizable cohesion, held together by a common enemy.

History is an instrument of the most genuine patriotic spirit

There will be selfishness and greed and corruption and narrowness and intolerance in the world tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow. But pray God we may have the courage and the wisdom and the vision to raise a definite standard that will appeal to the best that is in man, and then strive mightily toward that goal.

To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.

I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it's about who we are and how we came to be the way we are.

The Jew has his anchorage not in place but in time, in his highly developed sense of history as personal context. Six thousand years of self-awareness are a homeland.

War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.

Nationalism, on my opinion, is nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression.

As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves.

Know your history. It can teach you who you are, where you have come from, and how to be a better person as a result.

Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.

I always loved English because whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are. English is much more a story of who we really are.

Unconditional love is a lofty ideal, but unconditional hate is a fact well documented by history.

The German mind, may it live! Almost invisible as a mind, it finally manifests itself assertively as a conviction.

In our time, what is at issue is the very nature of man, the image we have of his limits and possibilities as a man. History is not yet done with its exploration of the limits and meanings of human nature.

With grace and a keen appreciation of human nature, Nicholas Thompson has written a revealing, moving history of the Cold War through two fascinating men.

I have an ultimate faith in America and an audacious faith in mankind.

Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the Cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits.

For the Soul of France is masterful history, brilliantly researched, and hard to put down.

Idealists are people who believe in the potential of human nature for transformation. . . . The most essential attribute of human nature is its mutability and freedom from instinct . . . it is always within our power to change our nature. So it is actually the idealists who are on the mark and the realists who are off base.

We are all citizens of history.