Skip to content

To seek to abolish history is the ambition of a fool. For a land without history is a barren island in an uncharted sea. To tear up the roots is to destroy the tree.

— Robert Menzies Melbourne Scots - 'Father and Son' Night address (1968)

Another quote →

Topics

History

More quotes by Robert Menzies

What Great Britain calls the Far East is to us the near north.

Policy speech (1939)

I would like to thank all those present—and those who are no longer present.

I am British to the bootstraps!

Speech at a White House luncheon (1964)

One thing about bureaucrats is that they never swallow their young. Leave them alone and you'll find them increasing every year.

At a Liberal Party rally in Melbourne (1946)

"It's not a crown, it's an old felt hat!"

All Robert Menzies quotes →

You may also like

A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Menzies (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.