History Quotes

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

George Orwell

The history of the world shows that peoples and societies do not have to pass through a fixed series of stages in the course of development.

Aung San Suu Kyi

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

John Burroughs

You are not a victim. No matter what you have been through, you're still here. You may have been challenged, hurt, betrayed, beaten, and discouraged, but nothing has defeated you. You are still here! You have been delayed but not denied. You are not a victim, you are a victor. You have a history of victory.

Steve Maraboli

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The lessons of history? There are four: The bee fertilizes the flower it robs; whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power; the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small; when it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Charles Austin Beard

Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip.

Ambrose Bierce

An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

Ambrose Bierce

Doc, every morning I look in the mirror and feel like barfing, what's wrong, he said I don't know but your eyesight is perfect.

Rodney Dangerfield

Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation.

Christopher Hitchens

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

Leo Tolstoy

The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

Oscar Wilde

Remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.

Mahatma Gandhi

[O]ne has to have endured a few decades before wanting, let alone needing, to embark on the project of recovering lost life. And I think it may be possible to review 'the chronicles of wasted time.' William Morris wrote in that men fight for things and then lose the battle, only to win it again in a shape and form that they had not expected, and then be compelled again to defend it under another name. We are all of us very good at self-persuasion and I strive to be alert to its traps, but a version of what Hegel called 'the cunning of history' is a parallel commentary that I fight to keep alive in my mind.

Christopher Hitchens

I bought a new book, '100 new ways to make love'. I ended up in traction it was a misprint

Rodney Dangerfield

History a distillation of Rumour.

Thomas Carlyle

The history of our country is cruel. We have to face those issues or, should I say, we had to. Not anymore I hope, because we are going in the right direction, and we are ready to forgive, ready to move on.

Novak Djokovic

I just read an 800-page history of the Scottish Enlightenment and, honestly, I may as well just start it again now, because I cannot remember a single thing. I can barely remember where Scotland is.

Hugh Laurie

Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.

Sir Walter Raleigh

I wanted to make sure that this be the first scientific and technology revolution in history in which the public thoroughly discussed all the potential benefits and all the potential harms, in advance of the technology coming online and running its course.

Jeremy Rifkin