61 Quotes by Jack Weatherford

The myth of the pioneer family or lone frontiersman venturing into virgin forest to hack out a meager homestead is belied by the thoroughly organized commercial value of such ventures. The main figure in the settlement of the west was the land company, which frequently operated not only on the edge of civilization but on the edge of legality as well.

The Mongols did not find honor in fighting; they found honor in winning. They had a single goal in every campaign—total victory. Toward this end, it did not matter what tactics were used against the enemy or how the battles were fought or avoided being fought. Winning by clever deception or cruel trickery was still winning and carried no stain on the bravery of the warriors, since there would be plenty of other occasions for showing prowess on the field.

Outlawing the sale or barter of women marked Genghis Khan’s first important departure from tribal practices regarding marriage, and gradually through a series of such changes he transformed the social position of his daughters, and thereby of all women, within his burgeoning empire.

If you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it.

The great actors of history cannot be neatly tucked between the covers of a book and filed away like so many pressed botanical specimens.

Victory did not come to the one who played by the rules; it came to the one who made the rules and imposed them on his enemy.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the first author in the English language, devoted the longest story in The Canterbury Tales to the Asian conqueror Genghis Khan of the Mongols.

Although many people can be your helper, no one should be closer to you than your own consciousness.

They quickly discerned the advantages of utilizing columns of numbers or place numbers in the style of Arabic numerals, and they introduced the use of zero, negative numbers, and algebra in China.