Victor Davis Hanson Quotes

• The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites, rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel, or to maintain adequate defense.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Inability, Adequate

• Often, the pretexts for starting a war are not real shortages of land, food or fuel, but rather perceptions – like fear, honor and perceived self-interest.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Perceived, Perceptions

• In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren’t absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Present, Account

• History has shown that a government’s redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector’s creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Wealth, Deadly

• War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Suddenly, Rust

• Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reflection, Majority

• Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Century, Third

• Americans spend more money on Botox, face lifts and tummy tucks than on the age-old scourges of polio, small pox and malaria.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Malaria, Spend

• The fact is, beneath the hype, Iraqis will soon appreciate American help and idealism far more than French perfidy. It is never wrong to be on the side of freedom – never.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Idealism, Appreciate

• This bloody past suggests to us that enemies cease hostilities only when they are battered enough to acknowledge that there is no hope in victory – and thus that further resistance means only useless sacrifice.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Topics in Victory

  Tags in Battered

• States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Tags in Conventional, Lax

• Any time the Western way of war can be unleashed on an enemy stupid enough to enter its arena, victory is assured.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Tags in Assured, Arena

Victor Davis Hanson (12)

Birth:	5th September, 1953
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Historian, Writer

About

Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, a scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and other media outlets.

Related Authors

• Marina Warner
• James Mill
• James Henry Breasted
• Eric Bogosian
• Mandell Creighton
• Theodore H. White
• Veronica Wedgwood
• James MacGregor Burns
• Theodore Zeldin
• Michael Beschloss

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 31st May

Births

• 1962 - Larry Bucshon
• 1872 - William Heath Robinson
• 1819 - Walt Whitman
• 1939 - Terry Waite
• 1773 - Ludwig Tieck

Deaths

• 1970 - Terry Sawchuk
• 1847 - Thomas Chalmers
• 2004 - Robert Quine
• 1981 - Barbara Ward
• 1962 - Adolf Eichmann