Nigel Hamilton Quotes

There are certain historical figures of such importance that we need to know everything about them, which is why books about Napoleon, Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I, and the great religious founders continue to proliferate; these lives require constant reevaluation and interpretation.

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.

I did projects on Champlain coming up the St. Lawrence River and on Henry Hudson cast adrift in the bay that now bears his name. And I read dozens of historical novels: Rosemary Sutcliff on Roman Britain and G. A. Henty on British heroes, though my all-time favourite was Ronald Welch's 'Knight Crusader.'

Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus.

A good watch may serve to keep a recconing at Sea for some days and to know the time of a Celestial Observ[at]ion: and for this end a good Jewel watch may suffice till a better sort of Watch can be found out. But when the Longitude at sea is once lost, it cannot be found again by any watch.

History! Read it and weep!

I definitely love history. I'm not formally trained or educated in history, but you could say I did go back to college in 2008 to do Untold History of the United States. That took five years. Co-author Peter Kuznick has been teaching history for something like 35 years, at American University and other places. His group of researchers brought me into contact with a lot of books.

The glory of a nation and an age is always the work of a few great persons, and it disappears with them.

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

I love history. I'm very interested by it and I think it's great to have a movie that brings it alive in a way. It's sort of that romanticized version of it.

The narrow sectarian cannot read astronomy with impunity. The creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the door of the observatory.

History isn't about dates and places and wars. It's about the people who fill the spaces between them.

History is truely the witness of times past, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.

I know the stars are my home. I learned about them, needed them for survival in terms of navigation. I know where I am when I look up at the sky. I know where I am when I look up at the Moon; it's not just some abstract romantic idea, it's something very real to me. See, I've expanded my home.

System debugging has always been a graveyard-shift occupation, like astronomy.

By my reckoning, I'm about 100 kilometers from Pathfinder. Technically it's called “Carl Sagan Memorial Station.” But with all due respect to Carl, I can call it whatever the hell I want. I'm the King of Mars.

The men who make history have not time to write it.

Men make history. History does not make the man.

Slowly but without question - and Presidents' Day is only one example - Americans are forgetting and ignoring the men and events that have made this nation great.

One of the many troubles of growing older is that it gets progressively harder to find a famous historical figure who hadn't yet amounted to anything by the time he was your age.

I don't [even] know the number of books on Abraham Lincoln. Ten thousand, twelve thousand? I have seen various numbers. It seems like every generation is always trying to come to terms with Lincoln.

The piece of equipment I'm most found off is my telescope. The other night I had a superb view of the moon.

The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.

In Spain," indeed! He would have got no closer than the Indies if I had not showed him how to do it. Stupid puppy.

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.