|
History |
|
|
History,
n. An account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought
about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
|
| -- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American writer,
The Devil's Dictionary |
|
| "What is history but a fable agreed upon." |
| -- Napolean Bonaparte
(1769-1821), French general, Napoleon I of France |
|
| "History is philosophy teaching by
examples." |
| -- Henry St. John Bolingbroke |
|
| "History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an
observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the
final analysis, for God." |
| -- Albert Camus (1913-60),
French novelist, essayist, playwright, philosopher |
|
|
"History is, strictly speaking, the study of
questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and
sociology." |
|
-- Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-73),
British-born American writer, critic |
|
| "Our ignorance of history makes us libel
to our own times. People have always been like this." |
| -- Gustave Flaubert (1821-80), French writer |
|
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."
-- Sir Winston Leonard Spenser
Churchill (1874-1965), British prime minister, author |
|
| "The history of the world is but the
biography of great men." |
| -- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), British
historian, essayist |
|
| “To be ignorant of the lives of the most
celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of
childhood.” |
| -- Plutarch |
|
| "History is the present. That's why every generation writes
it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product,
myth." |
| -- E. L. Doctorow |
|
|
“Historian: an
unsuccessful novelist.” |
| --
H.L. Mencken |
|
| "People who make history know nothing
about history. You can see that in the sort of history they
make." |
| -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936),
British writer, critic |
|
- "Men make history, and not the other way around. In
periods where there is no leadership, society stands still.
Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the
opportunity to change things for the better."
|
| -- Harry Truman (1894-1972) |
|
| "The great tragedies of history occur not
when right confronts wrong but when two rights confront each
other." |
| -- Henry Alfred Kissinger (b. 1923),
German-born American diplomat |
|
| “History is herstory, too.”
|
| -- Anonymous |
|
| "The charm of history and its enigmatic
lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes
and yet everything is completely different." |
| -- Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963), British
writer |
|
| "More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads.
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly." |
| -- Woody Allen (b. 1935),
American comedian, actor |
|
| "The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of
antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character
thereby." |
| -- I Ching (BC 1150) |
|
| "Live out of your imagination, not your
history." |
| -- Stephen R. Covey (b. 1932),
American writer, author |
|
| "We have the power to make this the best
generation of mankind in the history of the world - or to make it
the last." |
| -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-63), 35th US
President |
|
| "One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a
good thing to do and always a clever thing to say." |
|
-- William James
"Will" Durant (1885-1981), American historian |
|
- "Human history becomes more and more a race between
education and catastrophe."
|
| -- H.G. Wells (1866-1946), English writer |
|
| "I like the dreams of the future better than the
history of the past." |
| -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
3rd US President, Democrat |
|
| "That men do not
learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all
the lessons that history has to teach." |
| -- Aldous Leonard Huxley
(1894-1963), British writer |
|
| "Ideas shape the course of history." |
| -- John Maynard Keynes
(1883-1946), British economist |
|
| "The very ink with which all history is
written is merely fluid prejudice." |
| -- Mark Twain (1835-1910), [Samuel Langhorne
Clemens] American author |
|
| "The library is the temple of learning, and learning has
liberated more people than all the wars in history." |
| -- Carl Rowen |
|
| "History is the record of an encounter
between character and circumstances." |
| -- Donald Creighton |
|
| "We learn from history that we do not
learn from history." |
| -- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831),
German philosopher |
|
| "The first glance at History convinces us that
the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their
characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that such needs,
passions and interests are the sole spring of actions." |
| -- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770-1831), German philosopher |
|
| "If we could read the secret
history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and
suffering enough to disarm any hostility." |
| -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-82), American writer |
|
| "Swindon: What will history say? Burgoyne:
History, sir, will tell lies as usual." |
| -- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish-born
British playwright |
|
| "Human history becomes more and more a race between
education and catastrophe." |
| -- H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells
(1866-1946), English author, social thinker |
|
| "Judging from the main portion of the
history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy." |
| -- Walt Whitman (1819-92), American poet |
|
| “At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to
shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it
was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox.
So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.”
|
| -- Lyndon Johnson, American President |
|
| "Not only the studying and writing of
history but also the honoring of it both represent affirmations of a
certain defiant faith-a desperate, unreasoning faith, if you
will-but faith nevertheless in the endurance of this threatened
world-faith in the total essentiality of historical
continuity." |
| -- George Frost Kennan (b. 1904), US diplomat |
|
| "The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows
that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of
earnest struggle. . . .If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men
who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without
thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
many waters." |
| -- Frederick Douglass (1817-95),
Liberated slave, civil rights leader, author |
|
| "Science and technology revolutionize our
lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response. Expelled
from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds
its revenge by stamping the collective unconsciousness with habits,
values, expectations, dreams. The dialectic between past and future
will continue to form our lives." |
| -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. |
|
| "History is the witness that testifies to
the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory,
provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of
antiquity." |
| -- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC) |
|
- "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and
belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up
for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes
out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and
crossing each other from a million different centers of energy
and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down
the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
|
| -- Robert Kennedy, American stateman |
|
| "In its entirety, human history tells the
story of children who survived many trials, gained knowledge,
adapted, and came of age in civilization, only to find themselves
infused with society values fueled by rampant mass cognitive
dissonance threatening integrity and vision of individuals crucial
for species positioning." |
| -- Albert Emerson Unaterra (1952-2002),
American writer |
|
| "History is the discovering of the
constant and universal principles of human nature." |
| -- David Hume (1711-76), British philosopher |
|
| "The history of man is a graveyard of
great cultures that came to catastrophic ends because of their
incapacity for planned, rational, voluntary reaction to
challenge." |
| -- Erich Fromm (1900-80), German-born American
psychoanalyst |
|
| "History repeats itself and history never
repeats itself are about equally true… We never know enough about
the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy
the future by analogy." |
| -- George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962),
British historian |
|
| "The idea that there is one people in
possession of the truth, one answer to the world’s ills, or one
solution to humanity’s needs, has done untold harm throughout
history – especially in the last century." |
| -- Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United
Nations |
|
| "I found one day in school a boy of medium
size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied:
'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words
he epitomized the history of the human race." |
| -- Bertrand Russel (1872-1970), British
philosopher, mathematician |
|
| "History is a living horse laughing at a
wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is
no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key.
History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of
ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says,
if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen
again if I can help it." |
| -- Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), American writer |
|
| "Science and technology revolutionize our
lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response. Expelled
from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds
its revenge by stamping the collective unconsciousness with habits,
values, expectations, dreams. The dialectic between past and future
will continue to form our lives." |
| -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. |
|
