“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
Praefatio, sec. 10
History of Rome
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Livy 70
Roman historian -59–17 BCRelated quotes

The Golden Speech (1601)

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm
Context: A wonderful chemist, Svante Arrhenius, in 1896, explained, actually, how things would unfold as CO2 rose in the atmosphere. The quantum mechanics have been understood, the basic dynamics have been understood, for many, many decades. One of my colleagues testified in US Congress, almost got it to precision, what would happen over the next 30 years. The fact of the matter is, now we’re in it. We’re in the midst of horrendous danger, and it’s unfolding before our eyes, and still we are not acting. And the reason we’re not acting is big money and big companies, and it’s complete dishonesty. And I would add your Mr Rupert Murdoch, who has made a mess of the media all over the world, by propounding nonsense in the tabloids and our Fox News, in the Wall Street Journal, telling lies at the service of the oil industry

Book I, 980a.21: Opening paragraph of Metaphysics
The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10
Metaphysics
Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge.

Source: "Keynote Speech by Ambassador Qin Gang at the Commemoration for the 50th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s Visit to China" https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/202203/t20220303_10647768.html (25 February 2021)

Source: The Voice of Destruction (1940), pp. 192-193

On History.
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
Variant: What is all Knowledge too, but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials.
“The desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action…”
Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), p. 148