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Quotes about history

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The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
The Bible (King James Version)Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV)In context
- Time
Always the victor writes the history of the vanquished. He who beats distorts the faces of the beaten. The weaker depart from this world and the lies remain.
Bertolt Brecht1898–1956The Trial of Lucullus (1940), Brecht Collected Plays, vol. 4, p. 386.
History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.
Zbigniew Brzezinski1928–2017The New York Times, January 18, 1981 Quotation of the Day.
We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.
John Buchan1875–1940Address to the people of Canada on the coronation of George VI (12 May 1937)
Strike from mankind the principle of Faith, and men would have no more history than a flock of sheep.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton1803–1873Caxtoniana (1862), Essay XVIII. Faith and Charity
- Faith
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
- Time
We have a place, all of us, in a long story. A story we continue, but whose end we will not see.
George W. Bushborn 1946George W. Bush’s First Inaugural Address (2001)
History a distillation of Rumour.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881The French Revolution. A History (1837), Pt. I, Bk. VII, ch. 5.
History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), On History.
The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881The Hero as Divinity
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881The Hero as Man of Letters
- Reading
Condemn me, it does not matter: history will absolve me.
Fidel Castro1926–2016Closing words of his defense at the Moncada trial (16 October 1953), published as History Will Absolve Me
The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.
Willa Cather1873–1947O Pioneers! (1913), Part I, Ch. 5
There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.
Willa Cather1873–1947O Pioneers! (1913), Part II, Ch. 4
- Writing
Islam is part of our past and our present, in all fields of human endeavour.
Charles IIIborn 1948Speech on Islam and the West to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (27 October 1993)
- Religion