Quotes about history
176 quotes from 130 people
- ?UnattributedOften credited to Mark Twain
The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.
There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856), p. 88
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 31An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
James A. Michener1907–1997Space (1982)
Voltaire1694–1778Lettres sur l’origine des sciences et sur celle des peuples de l’Asie adressés à M. de Voltaire par M. Bailly et précédées de quelques lettres de M. de Voltaire a l’auteur (Paris, 1777), quoted in E. F. Bryant, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic …We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech, Richmond, Virginia (20 September 1952)People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Volume iii, p. 274
Malcolm X1925–1965Speech at Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964), as quoted in By Any Means Necessary (1970)A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Time Enough for Love (1973)
Will Durant1885–1981The Case for India (1931)People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
James Baldwin1924–1987“Stranger in the Village”History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
