The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world would occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing with the same set of facts. Bill Vaughan

After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an accident, it makes you wonder about history. Dave Barry

A splutter of musketry. Winston Churchill on how to solve the Iranian Oil Crisis in 1950

History, n. An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools. Ambrose Bierce

If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. Michael Crichton

When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. Otto von Bismarck

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied. Otto von Bismarck

Now that democracy is replacing communism in Eastern Europe, it means the end of elections that are rigged - and the beginning of elections that are bought. Joe Hickman

The Right Honourable Gentleman's smile is like the silver fittings on a coffin. Benjamin Disraeli on Robert Peel.

The people have spoken, the bastards. Dick Tuck, Californian politician