“The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.”– Ambrose Bierce Related Quotes “The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history and he failed to build a true international coalition.”– Nancy Pelosi “He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace.”— Polybius “My place in history will depend on what I can do for the people and not on what the people can do for me.”– William Jennings Bryan