Triumphalism Quotes

History is written by the victors.

History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell these stories - triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectally - has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings.

In 1945, at the beginning of the Cold War, our leaders led us astray. We need to think of the Cold War as an aberration, a wrong turn. As such, we need to go back to where we were in 1945 - before we took the road to a permanent war economy, a national security state and a foreign policy based on unilateralism and cowboy triumphalism.

We obtained victory. The price was that we ruined the country.

The sun flag of the great Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il will forever flutter in the van of our revolutionary ranks that display only victory and honor and will always encourage and drive us toward a new victory.

When it comes to my rights as an American citizen, and yours, I am a triumphalist and an absolutist. Anything less is an insult.

There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: 'Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world.'

Beware of being blinded by your own success.

There is also this great sense of triumphalism, that just as we defeated the Soviet Union, we can do this. And out of this sense of desperation and pathological religion, there develops an all-encompassing drive to harm and hurt, without regard for the innocent and the uninvolved, which was the case in New York.

Why should you care? Your side won.

Americans like to believe we can overcome all obstacles and always triumph in the end, but that's not real life and a steady diet of stories like that will give you a pretty unhealthy view of reality.

Winning excuses everything.

I am the victor. In the end nothing else matters.

I hate that 'I got it' stuff. That drives me nuts. It's that natural instinct that everything's OK because you're winning.

A triumphalist corporate capitalism, free at last of the specter of Communism, has mobilized its economic power to relentlessly marginalize all nonmarket values; to subordinate every aspect of American life to corporate "efficiency" and the bottom line; to demonize not only government but the very idea of public service and public goods.

There is nothing more intoxicating than victory, and nothing more dangerous.

We're [humans] running great risks of doing things that will not be good for us. The cost can be very high indeed if we reach the point where we can't adapt to our own increasingly rapid adaptations. We run the risk of early extinction. So this certainly isn't a triumphalist story, but it is trying to get at what, in the very long run, leads to the amazing creatures that we are.

When glory comes, loss of memory follows.

What comes after victory? Why do people value victory so much? What is 'glory'? What kind of victory is 'glorious'?

That says it all. When you say, 'Victory,' that says it all.

Parading our own brilliance and exulting in other people's errors is not very nice. For that matter, even wanting to parade our own brilliance and exult in other people's errors is not very nice, although it is certainly very human.

The lessons of history are taught by the victors.

I'm a bad loser, but I'm not a good winner either - I like to rub it in people's faces!

The click [of a light switch] is the modern triumphal clarion proceeding us through life, announcing our entry into every lightless room.

History is the polemics of the victor..