Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
History must be written of, by and for the survivors.
—Unknown
It’s clear that something must be done about the effectively disruptive tactics of anarchistic handfuls (at political rallies). Handling the occasional heckler is a storied, valuable art in politics; but a militant group of grubs (have) announced their determination to rape the right of candidates to be heard and of citizens to hear. Far, far too often these stinky finkies succeeded…. Free speech is the first requisite of freedom and a viable, functioning democracy. The exercise of it cannot be at the option of those who think the right to dissent includes the right to destroy.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Our best history is still poetry.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given, and transmitted from the past.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
Historians give us the extraordinary events, and omit just what we want, the everyday life of each particular time and country.
—Richard Whately (1787–1863) English Philosopher, Theologian
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
History teaches everything including the future.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
Those who have employed the study of history, as they ought, for their instruction, for the regulation of their private manners, and the management of public affairs, must agree with me that it is the most pleasant school of wisdom.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
History is the narrative of great actions with praise or blame.
—Cotton Mather (1662–1728) American Clergyman
The value of history. ..is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.
—R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) English Philosopher, Historian, Archaeologist
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. Weeven we herehold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
There is a history in all men’s lives.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.
—Karl Popper (1902–94) Austrian-born British Philosopher
Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after is has happened; but only the wise man knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Human history in essence is the history of ideas.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
We are always doing, says he, “something for posterity, but I would see posterity do something for us.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilence in every page; the men so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian Head of State
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
History has to move in a certain direction, even if it has to be pushed that way by neurotics.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The supreme purpose of history is a better world.
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st American President
What experience and history teach us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
It’s my belief that history is a wheel. ‘Inconstancy is my very essence,’ says the wheel. Rise up on my spokes if you like but don’t complain when you’re cast back down into the depths. Good time pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it’s also our hope. The worst of time, like the best, are always passing away.
—Boethius (c.480–524 CE) Roman Statesman, Philosopher
All motion is cyclic. It circulates to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting point.
—Robert Collier (1885–1950) American Self-Help Author
History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.
—James A. Garfield (1831–81) American Head of State, Lawyer, Educator
History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–89) American Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic
[History is a] costly and superfluous luxury of the understanding.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L. P. Hartley (1895–1972) British Writer, Critic
In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth.
—James Harvey Robinson (1863–1936) American Historian
My experiences of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them nor be indisposed to serve them: nor, in spite of failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or the present aspect of affairs, do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.
—Robert E. Lee (1807–70) Confederate General during American Civil War
History… is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
[History is] little else than a long succession of useless cruelties.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
History is a vast early warning system.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
All history is but the lengthened shadow of a great man
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
History is the enactment of ritual on a permanent and universal stage; and its perpetual commemoration.
—Norman O. Brown (1913–2002) American Philosopher
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
When I wanted to understand what is happening today, I try to decide what will happen tomorrow; I look back, a page of history is worth a volume of logic.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author