Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Confess Which Historical Quotes Give Them The Chills

People Confess Which Historical Quotes Give Them The Chills
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

History is littered with horror and fright.

And much of it is journaled and cataloged for our reading pleasure.

Which sometimes is reading that can leave one a bit on edge.

That's because some of our best long-dead wordsmiths left some serious echoes.

Now we all do love a good speech.

We're especially entranced when the speaker has that certain... "thing."

But once and awhile when you listen and really dig deep, they are less inspirational and more morbid


Redditor KeyWar8755 wanted to compare notes on the words we can't shake.They asked:

"What’s a quote from history that gives you chills?"

I always listen to famous serial killers. So I've long been tainted.

To the Sea

Season 3 Nbc GIF by ManifestGiphy

"'It is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated […] that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.'"

"General Sherman, from a letter sent in May of 1865 in the midst of his march to the sea."

TTTriplicate

Loss in Life

“'WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.'― Smedley Butler"

ayayaJAMMER

Shoot

"'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.' -- Dwight D. Eisenhower"

zyygh

Dirty

"'In Germany, the one who complains about the dirt is considered much more dangerous than the one making something dirty.' -Kurt Tucholsky"

"(Not an exact translation, the original quote is in German)"

EsszettOfficial

I'll Find You

looney tunes marco GIF by Looney Tunes World of MayhemGiphy

"Nobody believed Marco Polo’s stories about travelling through Asia, and on his deathbed someone asked him to admit he had made it all up. His response was 'I have not told half of what I have seen.' That always got my imagination going. I would have liked to have heard his stories straight from him."

mariam67

I've always wondered about Marco Polo's origins.

Dreams

Hungry Hanna Barbera GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphy

“'All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.' T. E. Lawrence"

Kravashera

Time to Die

"'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to die.' — Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner"

cisforcoffee

Send it All...

"'Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle… If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send another.' - Said by Josip Broz Tito to Joseph Stalin"

ChangKaiShek2

Death

“'I used to have five brothers, now I'm not even a brother' - Kevin Von Erich"

"His older brother died at the age of 6. His younger brother David died suddenly at 25. His three youngest brothers all killed themselves at 33, 23, and 21. Between 1984 and 1993 he went from having four younger brothers to not being a brother."

ToxicBanana69

Remember

Martin Luther King Jr Mlk GIF by IdentityGiphy

"'We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.' - Martin Luther King, Jr."

RecalledBurger

Power

"'We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or make it the last.' - John F. Kennedy"

VerdHorizon

Hard Truth

"'There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.' --Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"

thatsnotmyf**kinname

"Whew! The timing."

imheretoupvotes**t

"Seen too many once in a generation depressions and once in a hundred years extreme weather events."

Meritania

Pay Attention

"'A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.' Robert Heinlein"

underpressure65

"Here in Latin America we have a similar saying: 'Un pueblo sin memoria es un pueblo sin futuro.' Which means 'A nation without memories is a nation without a future.'"

Guilhermedidi

NOW!

gordon ramsay fox GIF by MasterChef JuniorGiphy

"'They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.' -Robert Heinlein"

Hob_O_Rarison

"Damn. I work in manufacturing and this hit me right in the paycheck."

XXPapaZombieXX

Take Notice

"'Why show anger to the world, as if the world would notice.'"

Wehfi

"I like this. Who said it?"

-Saltyz

"It's a double quotation. It's best known today as a quotation from the Meditations by Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, but he was himself quoting from the Greek play Bellerophon by Euripedes."

contramundi

Bull Moose

"'Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. But fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet - there is where the bullet went through - and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.' -Teddy Roosevelt"

herculesmeowlligan

Pay Up

“'It will cost what it will.' - Albert von Bredow"

"After receiving orders to charge the French infantry. Would become one of the last successful cavalry charges used in battle. More than half of them died in the charge."

KingOfWinteryIce

DONE

Proud Ides Of March GIF by Checkatrade.comGiphy

"'The die is cast - Ceasar'"

"He said that after sending Roman troops to the border of Italy and Callia which marked the beginning of a Civil War."

Lanxol

Franz

“'One day the Great European War will come out of some damn foolish thing in the Balkans.' - Otto Von Bismarck"

"Said in 1888, 26 years before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo triggering World War One."

Superb-Possibility-9

These are some powerful words that have stood the test of time.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Screenshot of Donald Trump
Fox News

Donald Trump Sparks Backlash After Blaming 'Diversity' Initiatives For Deadly DC Airline Crash

President Donald Trump was criticized for claiming baselessly that the deadly inflight collision at DCA Wednesday night happened because of "diversity" initiatives with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Last night, a regional jet collided with a U.S. Army helicopter at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, resulting in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years. The crash claimed the lives of 67 people, including 60 passengers and 4 crew members aboard the American Airlines Bombardier.

Keep ReadingShow less
Anthony Mackie
MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images

Anthony Mackie Clarifies His Comments About 'Captain America' After Conservative Backlash

Marvel actor Anthony Mackie, who stars in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, cleared the air about his previous comments regarding his character not representing "America" that riled conservatives.

The 46-year-old American actor, who is reprising his Marvel character Sam Wilson–a.k.a. Captain America–in the new film, took to Instagram stories to state, "Let me be clear about this, I'm a proud American."

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Kansas Hit With One Of The Largest Tuberculosis Outbreaks In History—And Trump Is Making It Worse

Kansas is currently facing one of the largest tuberculosis (TB) outbreaks in history but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been unable to alert the public to the extent that it could, due to former President Donald Trump's "pause" on health agency communications.

TB is a bacterial infection primarily affecting the lungs, with active cases causing symptoms such as chest pain, coughing up blood, weight loss, and chills. When left untreated, it can be fatal. TB is contagious only when symptoms are present, but people with latent TB, who do not exhibit symptoms, cannot spread the infection.

Keep ReadingShow less
A table setting with a napkin of the American flag and the Statue of Liberty
silver fork and bread knife on white ceramic plate
Photo by Dyana Wing So on Unsplash

Europeans Explain Which Everyday American Things Seem Like Luxuries

It's easy for anyone to take for granted how lucky they are.

Many of us wish we were living in a larger home, had a more fulfilling or lucrative job, or wished our family would call us a little less frequently.

Keep ReadingShow less
Everyday English book
Ivan Shilov on Unsplash

Common Phrases That No Longer Make Sense With Modern Tech

Language evolves over time, but some idioms linger long after their original reference point is gone.

For example, the phrases "by hook or by crook" and "rule of thumb" date back to the 14th and 17th centuries respectively.

Keep ReadingShow less