quotations about history
Tell me the Acts, O historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Blake's Exhibition and Catalogue of 1809, A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures: Number V. The Ancient Britons
History is not a suicide note -- it is a record of our survival.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
History can be well written only in a free country.
VOLTAIRE
letter to Frederick the Great
Half the things you've been taught in school are just convenient fictions. History is a puppet show for childish minds.
JOHN TWELVE HAWKS
The Traveler
All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.
ANNE BRONTE
Agnes Grey
History, like God, is watching what we do.
BONO
remarks at National Prayer Breakfast, Feb. 2, 2006
History shows that there are no invincible armies and that there never have been.
JOSEPH STALIN
radio address, July 3, 1941
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. WELLS
The Outline of History
What dependence can I have on the alleged events of ancient history, when I find such difficulty in ascertaining the truth regarding a matter that has taken place only a few minutes ago, and almost in my own presence!
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
attributed, Testimony: Its Posture in the Scientific World
Construed as a means instead of an end, history is the weapon with which we defend the future against the past.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
Lapham's Quarterly, 2008
Myths ... collected like barnacles on history, obscuring the truth.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
A good knowledge of things past is an armour against events to come.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The historian's task is to present what actually happened. The more purely and completely he achieves this, the more perfectly has he solved this problem. A simple presentation is at the same time the primary indispensable condition of his work and the highest achievement he will be able to attain. Regarded in this way, he seems to be merely receptive and productive, not active and creative.
WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT
"The Historian's Task"
It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.
REBECCA WEST
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
No man is free of his own history.
ANITA BROOKNER
Latecomers
People are absolutely haunted by [history]. You can see it at the swap meets.
PAMELA LANSDEN
"It's Monterey, Jack", Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1997
History, again, tells us of successive civilizations which have been born, have for a space thriven exceedingly, and have then miserably perished.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Essays and Addresses
History is a struggle between the "old" right that intended to be just and the "new" that promises to be.
REINHARD BENDIX
Truth and Ideology
I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life.
TONI MORRISON
Time interview, Jan. 21, 1998
All you have learned from history is old ways of making mistakes. There is nothing that history can tell you about what we must do tomorrow. Only what we must not do.
EDWIN H. LAND
address to Polaroid Corporation employees at Symphony Hall in Boston, February 5, 1960