HISTORY QUOTES IX

quotations about history

Faithful, well-written history is a map, in which we trace the winding ways and manifold wonders of divine Providence.

JOHN THORNTON

Maxims and Directions for Youth


You know you're getting older when you notice that more and more history questions happened in your lifetime!

TOM WILSON

Ziggy, Jul. 3, 1999

Tags: Tom Wilson


The historian's duty is to separate the true from the false, the certain from the uncertain, and the doubtful from that which cannot be accepted.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


History is not the soil of happiness. The periods of happiness are blank pages in it.

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Tags: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel


I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

letter to John Adams, August 1, 1816

Tags: Thomas Jefferson


Many scholars have complained of our tendency to see history only in conflicts, but I am not convinced they are right. It is in conflict that our values are exposed.

BERNARD BECKETT

Genesis

Tags: Bernard Beckett


What are our pretended histories? Fables, jest-books, satires, apologies, anything but what they profess to be.

A. H. EVERETT

attributed, Day's Collacon


History is written by the winners.

ALEX HALEY

attributed, And I Quote

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History gets written by the winners.

CASSANDRA CLARE

City of Lost Souls

Tags: Cassandra Clare


History presents an historian with the task of producing a dialogue between the past and the present. But as these temporal co-ordinates cannot be fixed, history becomes a continuous interaction between the historian and the past.

DANA ARNOLD

Reading Architectural History


Every historian has described the age in which he happened to write, as the worst, because he has only heard of the wickedness of other times, but has felt and seen that of his own.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon

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The vividness and force with which we trace the motion of history depends on the degree to which we look beyond persons and fix our gaze on things.

LORD ACTON

letter to Mary Gladstone, March 15, 1880

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History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

The Last of the Mohicans

Tags: James Fenimore Cooper


Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

PLATO

Ion

Tags: Plato


Old men can make war, but it is children who will make history.

RAY MERRITT

Full of Grace

Tags: Ray Merritt