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Friday, August 17, 2012

What is history?

History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil. ~Joseph Heller, Good as Gold

History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity. ~Dexter Perkins

History never looks like history when you are living through it. ~John W. Gardner

History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided. ~Konrad Adenauer

Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up. ~Author Unknown

Take from the altars of the past the fire - not the ashes. ~Jean Jaures

To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child. (Cicero)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (George Santayana)

We cannot escape history. (Abraham Lincoln)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Some fun quotes, thanks!

Still, Re "Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil..."

Well now...
lighting switchover from incandescents only saves c.1% of grid energy on Dept of Energy data,
little oil is used in power plants,
and little coal is saved anyway given off-peak slow relatively constant base loading or cycled coal plant operation that basically burns the same coal whatever bulbs are used
(a reason for cheap night electricity)...
http://ceolas.net/#li171x onwards

Unknown said...

Agreed - who would have thought though. Hmmm.