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Quotes about history

176 quotes from 130 people

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Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.
W. H. Auden1907–1973The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays (1962), “D. H. Lawrence”
One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way.
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889–1951Culture and Value (1980), p. 98e
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
The only saving grace of the present is that it’s too damned stupid to question the past very closely.
H. P. Lovecraft1890–1937“Pickman’s Model “—written 1926; first published in Weird Tales, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October 1927)
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.
Eugene V. Debs1855–1926Speech in Cleveland, Ohio.(Sept. 11, 1918) Eugene V. Debs Speaks, ed. Jean Y. Tussey (1970)
- Change
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Harijan (19 November 1938) p. 343
- Motivation & Goals
Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart, Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.
Vladimir Putinborn 1952Putin Retains Soviet Discipline While Steering Toward Reform (20 February 2000)
- Politics
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Aristotle384–322 BCPoetics, 1451b.6
- Poetry
This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Voltaire1694–1778Essai sur l’histoire générale et sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations, Chapter 70 (1756)
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
Professor Johnston often said that if you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree.
Michael Crichton1942–2008Timeline (1999), Chapter 2, “Dordogne” (p. 85)
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.
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 Churchill1874–1965Speech in the House of Commons (January 23, 1948), cited in The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press, p. 154
- Comedy
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe… Yet, clumsily or smoothly, the world, it seems, progresses and will progress.
H. G. Wells1866–1946The Outline of History (1920), Ch. 41
- Education
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.