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Quotes about history

176 quotes from 130 people

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Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget⁠—lest we forget!
Rudyard Kipling1865–1936Recessional (1897)In context
- God
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Rudyard Kipling1865–1936The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919)In context
- Wisdom
The study of history offers no manual of instructions that can be applied automatically; history teaches by analogy, shedding light on the likely consequences of comparable situations.
Henry Kissinger1923–2023Diplomacy (1994)
The history of human thought recalls the swinging of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing. After a long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening.
Peter Kropotkin1842–1921Anarchist Morality (1890)
- Thinking
To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong.
Vladimir Lenin1870–1924Collected Works, Vol. 22, pp. 305–319.
The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.
John Lennon1940–1980Interview for KFRC RKO Radio (8 December 1980)
- Responsibility
Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.
Primo Levi1919–1987Interview with Daniel Toaff, Sorgenti di Vita (25 March 1983); translated by Mirto Stone
In history and in life one sometimes seems to glimpse a ferocious law which states: “to he that has, will be given; from he that has not, will be taken away.”
Primo Levi1919–1987If This Is a Man (1947)
- Justice
No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress (1862)
- Honor
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865The Gettysburg Address (1863)
- War & Peace
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress (1862)
- Responsibility
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Paul Revere’s Ride (1860)In context
- America
One if by land, and two if by sea
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882Paul Revere’s Ride (1860)In context
- America
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)
Anyone who studies present and ancient affairs will easily see how in all cities and all peoples there still exist, and have always existed, the same desires and passions.
Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527Discourses on Livy (c. 1517), Book I, Chapter 39