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
What are all histories but God manifesting himself, shaking down and trampling under foot whatsoever he hath not planted.
—Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) British Head of State, Military Leader
This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
The reason history is by turns gripping, boring and threatening is that it is a play in which the characters make up their lines as they go along.
—Dero A. Saunders (1914–2002) American Journalist, Scholar
While we read history we make history.
—George William Curtis (1824–92) American Essayist, Public Speaker, Editor, Author
Truth is very liable to be left-handed in history.
—Alexandre Dumas pere (1802–1870) French Novelist, Playwright
We read history through our prejudices.
—Wendell Phillips (1811–84) American Abolitionist, Lawyer, Orator
History is the enactment of ritual on a permanent and universal stage; and its perpetual commemoration.
—Norman O. Brown (1913–2002) American Philosopher
History repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history.
—Common Proverb
History, although sometimes made up of the few acts of the great, is more often shaped by the many acts of the small.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
History is neither more nor less than biography on a large scale.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
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
History is the ship carrying living memories to the future
—Stephen Spender (1909–95) English Poet, Critic
Once you uncover the history of this pattern and trace its roots, you will see that your reaction in the present moment is really a reaction from the past, a shadow character’s attempt to protect you from reexperiencing an old emotional wound, which instead sabotages you in the present.
—Connie Zweig (b.1949) American Minister, Columnist, Psychotherapist
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
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
History is not the story of heroes entirely. It is often the story of cruelty and injustice and shortsightedness. There are monsters, there is evil, there is betrayal. That’s why people should read Shakespeare and Dickens as well as history—they will find the best, the worst, the height of noble attainment and the depths of depravity.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs.
—David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Russian-born Israeli Head of State
History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
History never looks like history when you are living through it.
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Government Official, Political leader
Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that’s too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
—Julian Barnes (b.1946) British Novelist, Critic
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
Grecian history is a poem; Latin history, a picture; modern history a chronicle.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
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
History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction. The history of man’s ideas is nothing more than the chronicle of human error.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Two things we ought to learn from history: one, that we are not in ourselves superior to our fathers; another, that we are shamefully and monstrously inferior to them, if we do not advance beyond them.
—Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) English Educationalist
The main thing is to make history, not to write it.
—Otto von Bismarck (1815–98) German Chancellor, Prime Minister
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
Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
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
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
—Robert F. Kennedy (1925–68) American Politician, Civil Rights Activist
History is not a work of philosophy, it is a painting; it is necessary to combine narration with the representation of the subject, that is, it is necessary simultaneously to design and to paint; it is necessary to give to men the language and the sentiments of their times, not to regard the past in the light of our own opinion.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
Posterity gives every man his true value.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
—William C. Durant (1861–1947) American Industrialist
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don’t know
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) British Essayist, Caricaturist, Novelist
History does not repeat itself in the same way each time, but certain trends and consequences are constants. If you do not know history, you think short term. If you know history, you think medium and long term.
—Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) Singaporean Statesman
No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
—David McCullough (b.1933) American Historian
Caesar had perished from the world of men, had not his sword been rescued by his pen.
—Henry Vaughan (1621–95) Anglo-Welsh Metaphysical Poet
History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
To be a historian is to discover the facts in context, to discover what things mean, to lay before the reader your reconstruction of time, place, mood, to empathize even when you disagree. You read all the relevant material, you synthesize all the books, you speak to all the people you can, and then you write down what you known about the period. You feel you own it.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin American Biographer, Historian
The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge who sees, listens, and decides.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–86) American Literary Critic
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
History teaches everything including the future.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
To be entirely just in our estimate of other ages is not only difficult, but is impossible. Even what is passing in our presence we see but through a glass darkly. In historical inquiries the most instructed thinkers have but a limited advantage over the most illiterate. Those who know the most approach least to agreement.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
We find but few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth. It is their common method to take on trust what they distribute to the public; by which means, a falsehood, once received from a famed writer, becomes traditional to posterity.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
History is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Never doubt that you can change history. You already have.
—Marge Piercy (b.1936) American Poet, Novelist, Social Activist
It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.
—Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Italian Head of State, Politician
History remembers only the brilliant failures and the brilliant successes.
—Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American Writer, Scholar
History is the science of what never happens twice.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
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
You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that.
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–89) American Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic
Providence conceals itself in the details of human affairs, but becomes unveiled in the generalities of history.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.
—Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) British Head of State, Military Leader