Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
Adenauer Konrad 1876-1967
History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided.
Anonymous
After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident it makes you wonder about history.
Aristotle 384-322 BC
Poetics
So poetry is something more philosophical and more worthyof serious attention than history.
Auden W.H. 1907-1973
The Dyer's Hand
Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.
Bacon Francis 1561-1626
The Advancement of Learning
Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
Barnes Julian 1948-
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
Barth John 1930-
More history's made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills and proclamations.
The Bible (Authorized Version)
The Devil's Dictionary
History, n: an account mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Birrell Augustine 1850-1933
Obiter Dicta ‘Carlyle'
The great dust-heap called ‘history'.
Bradlee Benjamin 1921-
News is the first rough draft of history.
Burke Edmund 1729-1797
History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
Burns John 1858-1943
The Thames is liquid history.
Butler Samuel 1835-1902
Notebooks
The history of art is the history of revivals.
Carlyle Thomas 1795-1881
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays
History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
Carson Rachael 1907-1964
For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.
Castro Fidel 1926-
(title of pamphlet)
History will absolve me.
Céline Louis-Ferdinand 1894-1961
History doesn't pass the dishes again.
Churchill Sir Winston 1874-1965
The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.
Conrad Joseph 1857-1924
History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced.
It is utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.
Dickey James 1923-
Flight is the only true sensation that men have achieved in modern history.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus 30-7BC
Ars Rhetorica
History is philosophy learned from examples.
Disraeli Benjamin 1804-1881
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
Disraeli Benjamin 1804-1881
Contarini Fleming
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
Doctorow E.L. 1931-
History needs to be rewritten or it becomes mythology
and then it can be used destructively.
Durant Will 1885-1981
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Eliot George 1819-1880
The Mill on the Floss
The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
Eliot T.S. 1888-1965
Four Quartets ‘Little Gidding'
So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
Emerson Ralph Waldo 1803-1882
All history is but the lengthened shadow of a great man.
Emerson Ralph Waldo 1803-1882
Essays
There is properly no history: only biography.
Fischer Louis
Biography is history seen through the prism of a person.
Ford Henry 1863-1947
History is more or less bunk.
Forster E.M. 1879-1970
It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate
generals, and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us.
Frankfurter Felix 1882-1965
It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in cases involving not very nice people.
Gardner John W. 1912-
History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.
Gibbon Edward 1737-1794
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Glandstone W.E. 1809-1898
This, if I understand it, is one of those golden moments of our history, one of those opportunities which may come and may go, but which
rarely returns.
Guedalla Philip 1889-1944
Supers and Supermen
History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.
Howard Philip 1933-
Most history is a record of the triumphs, disasters and follies of top people. The black hole in it is the way of life of mute, inglorious men
and women who made no nuisance of themselves in the world.
James Henry 1843-1916
Hawthorne
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
Joyce James 1882-1941
Ulysses
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare
from which I am trying to awake.
Kaufman Gerald 1930-
(on the Labour Party's New Hope for Britain)
The longest suicide note in history.
Khrushchev Nikita 1894-1971
About the capitalist States, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations and don't
invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.
Kipling Rudyard 1865-1936
Nations have passed away and left no traces,
And history gives the naked cause of it -
One single simple reason in all cases;
They fell because their peoples were not fit.
Kissinger Henry 1932-
The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.
Law Andrew Bonar 1858-1923
If I am a great man, then a good many of the great men of history are frauds.
Lincoln Abraham 1809-1865
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history ... The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour to the last generation.