quotations about history
History gets reinterpreted as time goes on. Many times, the participants are lost in the retelling of the story.
BUZZ ALDRIN
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Esquire, Jan. 2003
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
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-writing is a way of getting rid of the past.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possibly a tragic one.
HERMANN HESSE
The Glass Bead Game
The history of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed upon the principles of POETICAL JUSTICE; it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in which the spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase, though they do not share in the spoil.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
The great historian is he that can distinguish what is done from what happens.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
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
History is the same thing over and over again.
WOODY ALLEN
interview, Der Spiegel, Jun. 20, 2005
Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.
FRANK HERBERT
Heretics of Dune
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
History gets written by the winners.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Lost Souls
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
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
Nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line.
BARACK OBAMA
The Audacity of Hope
People have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn't.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Eragon
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
History. It has always vaguely interested him, that sinister mulch of facts our little lives grow out of before joining the mulch themselves, the fragile brown rotting layers of previous deaths.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
The Last of the Mohicans
History is written by the winners.
ALEX HALEY
attributed, And I Quote