There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used...Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they though of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.
--Gil Bailie

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.
-- James Baldwin

...let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts to build societies in which slavery truly is a term for the history books.
-- Ban Ki-moon

* How are we going to make our livings in a society becoming increasingly jobless because of hi-tech and outsourcing? Where will we get the imagination to recognize that for most of human history the concept of Jobs didn’t even exist? Work, as distinguished from Labor, was done to produce needed goods and services, develop skills and artistry, and nurture cooperation.
-- Grace Lee Boggs

History will judge us on how we respond to the AIDS emergency in Africa....whether we stood around with watering cans and watched while a whole continent burst into flames....or not.
-- Bono

For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.
~ Rachel Carson

* It would be naïve to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems … However, with faith and perseverance, … complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace.
-- Jimmy Carter

It seems to rise again when the crisis times come, and this is a time of most severe crisis, as we all know, not just for the history of the United States and the survival indeed of our democracy, but for the future peace of the world. And never before probably has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly as great as it is at this very moment.
-- Walter Cronkite

The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done - challenging us to a realization of a new humanity."
-- Jean Houston

* For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end
-- Hubert Humphrey

* There is so much each one of us can do to make a difference. We are at a dangerous juncture in the history of mankind. … We need to defend our principles and values, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of international law. If we don’t our world will further descend into a state of chaos.
-- Bianca Jagger

* I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
~ Thomas Jefferson

In times of danger large groups rise to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, courage and sacrifice . . . Mankind will be refashioned and history rewritten when this law is understood and obeyed.
-- Helen Keller

* "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." -- Robert F. Kennedy

* It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. -- Robert F. Kennedy

* Where are the unusual individuals, the daring pioneers, who will devote their lives to making a better history for humanity? In order to create a new history for mankind, human beings will first have to create a new history within themselves. They will have to liberate themselves from national, religious, racial, and class prejudices and from enslavement to honor, fame, and pleasure...
-- Frederick Kettner

In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

Let us learn from nuclear radiation victims and prevent history from repeating itself.
-- Hilda Lini

It has been a woman's task throughout history to go on believing in life when there was almost no hope.
-- Margaret Mead

If you look at the course of western history you'll see that we're slowly granting basic rights to everyone. A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were extended to property-owning white men. Then all men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this --the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
-- Moby

"If heads of states fail to seize the opportunity of our entry into the third millennium to provide for a better government of planet Earth, history will not forgive them -- if there is a history."
-- Robert Muller

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility."
-- Edward R. Murrow

* The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.
-- M. Scott Peck

The philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects in every aspect of a person’s life. It ultimately makes people protective of the environment in a very committed way. It is my opinion that the study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists.
~ Roger Tory Peterson

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
-- Carl Sagan

"Human history has been recorded as a succession of wars and changing empires. But a ray of hope has been carried forth throughout the ages by dreamers who have envisioned a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. The Magna Carta, the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were quantum leaps forward in our collective quest for a better world. We still have far to go, but we can help create that better world countless dreamers have imagined, wished for and endeavored to make come true. Every moment has brought us to this moment. We are the ones we've been waiting for to manifest our shared peacetopian dream."
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

* We can help create that better world countless Dreamers have imagined, wished for, and endeavored to make come true. Every moment has brought us to this moment. We are the ones we've been waiting for to manifest our shared Peacetopian Dream...
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

Freedom is the most basic of all human rights, and yet throughout history many individuals and nations have had to struggle to be free. Much progress has been made in helping to win freedom for all. But even though all nations agreed to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for their citizens, many people are not allowed these basic liberties.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

As peacemakers, we are part of a movement that has worked throughout history towards humanity's greatest goal - creating a culture of peace.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

Viewed with one disposition, history has so far been a horrible accumulation of oppression and suffering. Viewed with another disposition, however, history has chronicled humans discovering their own finer potentials and together mounting heroic offensives to attain them - against monarchy, feudalism, slavery, Jim Crow racism, apartheid, sexual subjugation, second class citizenship, sexism, heterosexism, dictatorship, one party rule, capitalism, and coordinatorism (calling itself socialism) - and seeking, in their place, equity, justice, and freedom. The gains humans have made have been steady and plentiful. Now a major leap is possible. Consistent with past efforts, we can now attain fully liberatory goals, including, I think, participatory economics and also alternative structures for polity, culture, and kinship. We have only to make the effort.
-- Michael Albert

While we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed.
- Mattie Stepanek

* "I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse."
-- Mark Twain

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
-- Mark Twain

The story of the human race is characterized by efforts to get along much more than by violent disputes, although it's the latter that makes the history books. Violence is actually exceptional. The human race has survived because of cooperation, not aggression.
-- Gerard Vanderhaar

* What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.
~Carter Woodson

* Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.
~Carter Woodson

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
-- Howard Zinn