When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The present state of things is the consequence of the past; and it is natural to inquire as to the sources of the good we enjoy or the evils we suffer. If we act oniy for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent; if intrusted with the care of others, it is not just.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Reading maketh a full man; conference, a ready man: histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral philosophy, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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
After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.
—George Ade (1866–1944) American Humorist, Playwright
Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot.
—Simon Schama (b.1945) British Historian, Professor
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 Author, Psychotherapist
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
Well behaved women rarely make history.
—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (b.1938) American Historian, Professor
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
One age cannot be completely understood if all the others are not understood. The song of history can only be sung as a whole.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
False history gets made all day, any day; the truth of the new is never on the news.
—Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American Poet, Essayist
History is the glass through which we may behold, with ancestral eyes, not only the various deeds of past ages and the old accidents that attend them, but also discern the different humors of men.
—Jeremiah Brown Howell
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 Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
[History is a] costly and superfluous luxury of the understanding.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
History remembers only the brilliant failures and the brilliant successes.
—Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American Journalist, Social Critic
Don’t be misled by History, or any other unreliable source.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice—their choice.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
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 Business Editor
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
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
History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
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 (1933–2022) American Historian
History is neither more nor less than biography on a large scale.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
As in every human character so in every transaction there is a mixture of good and evil: a little exaggeration, a little suppression, a judicious use of epithets, a watchful and searching skepticism with respect to the evidence on one side, a convenient credulity with respect to every report or tradition on the other, may easily make a saint of Laud, or a tyrant of Henry the Fourth.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
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
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