“Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total — all of these acts — will be written in the history of this generation.”
Day of Affirmation Address (1966)
Variant: Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total — all of these acts — will be written in the history of this generation.
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Robert F. Kennedy 72
American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy 1925–1968Related quotes
In the Shadow of History, Chapter: Why should we study History? p. 4
History, What History Tells Us, In the Shadow of History

Book II, iv, 2
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Context: The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence: because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary, and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative variations: so as it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things.

Speech at 4th Annual Power Up Premiere Gala, Los Angeles, California (7 November 2004) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/speeches/powerup.html.

Source: Writings, The Biblical Philosophy of History (1969), p. 89

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 6 : Reading architectural herstories : The discourses of gender

Cited in: Eric Shiraev (2010) A History of Psychology: A Global Perspective. p. 314
A History of Experimental Psychology, 1929
“Written history, like the missionary position, is an act executed from the top looking down.”
The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats (Simon & Schuster, 1997)
“We are a sum total of what we have learned from all who have taught us, both great and small.”
Source: understanding your potential discovering the hidden you