quotations about history
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
History is philosophy teaching by examples.
THUCYDIDES
The History of the Peloponnesian War
What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.
JANE ADDAMS
address to the Union League Club of Chicago, Feb. 23, 1903
History gets written by the winners.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Lost Souls
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-writing is a way of getting rid of the past.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.
JULIAN BARNES
The Sense of an Ending
What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history or acted on the principles deduced from it.
G.W.F. HEGEL
Philosophy of History
Just as the human memory is not a passive recorder but a tool in the construction of the self, so history has never been a simple record of the past, but a means of shaping peoples.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
The Light of Other Days
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
The great historian is he that can distinguish what is done from what happens.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The Last of the Mohicans
The inflexible integrity of the moral code is, to me, the secret of the authority, the dignity, the utility of History. If we may debase the currency for the sake of genius, or success, or rank, or reputation, we may debase it for the sake of a man’s influence, of his religion, of his party, of the good cause which prospers by his credit and suffers by his disgrace. Then History ceases to be a science, an arbiter of controversy, a guide of the Wanderer, the upholder of that moral standard which the powers of earth and religion itself tend constantly to depress. It serves where it ought to reign; and it serves the worst cause better than the purest.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mandell Creighton, Apr. 5, 1887
There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
The inner reality of history is so unlike the back of the cards, and it takes so long to get at it, which does not prevent us from disbelieving what is current as history, but makes us wish to sift it, and dig through mud to solid foundations.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, September 21, 1880
On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called History, a foam-bell more or less is no consequence.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
"Literary Influence of Academies", Essays in Criticism
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
History is written by the winners.
ALEX HALEY
attributed, And I Quote
Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Butlerian Jihad
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