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Quotes about history

176 quotes from 130 people

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What’s past is prologue
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Tempest (c. 1611), Act II, Scene I, spoken by AntonioIn context
- Time
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.
Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822Ozymandias (1818)In context
- Time
I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.
Joseph Stalin1878–1953Said to Molotov in 1943, as quoted in Felix Chuev’s 140 Conversations with Molotov Moscow, 1991.
The darkest page in history is the persecutions of woman.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton1815–1902The Woman’s Bible (1898)
- Women
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton1815–1902Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Convention (July 19-20, 1848).
- Women
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)
- Time
It is of the essence of traditions that they cover or conceal their humble foundations by erecting impressive edifices on them.
Leo Strauss1899–1973Natural Right and History (1953), p. 31
The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 31
- Technology
The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what’s coming now.
Hunter S. Thompson1937–2005“When War Drums Roll” (17 September 2001)
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
It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present, and go to that past to seek large views of what is of lasting importance to the human race.
Arnold Toynbee1852–1883Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884), p. 31
I do not measure the historical process by the yardstick of one’s personal fate.
Leon Trotsky1879–1940My Life (1930), Ch. 45: The Planet without a Visa
There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
Harry S. Truman1884–1972
Herodotus says, “Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.”
Mark Twain1835–1910A Horse’s Tale (1907), Acknowledgements
- Comedy
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
?UnattributedOften credited to Mark Twain