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History45 quotes
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. — Karl Marx · 1848History is written by the winners. — George Orwell · 1944History is more or less bunk. — Henry Ford · 1916Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana · 1905Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx · 1852Who built the Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?... Where, the evening that the wall of China was finished Did the masons go? — Bertolt Brecht · 1936All 45 quotes →
The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. — Willa Cather · 1913In historical events great men-so called-are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. — Leo Tolstoy · 1869History, we know, is apt to repeat itself. — George Eliot · 1857What I did that was new was to prove... That the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat. — Karl Marx · 1852Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave. — H.A.L. Fisher · 1935History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776All 10 quotes →
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana · 1905That 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 Huxley · 1956At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. — Edmund Burke · 1790What experience and history teach is this-that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1830History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. — Abba Eban · 1970All 8 quotes →
The past5 quotes
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana · 1905At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840The history of things that didn’t happen has never been written. — Henry Kissinger · 1972Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind. — W.H. Auden · 1962If history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good. — Venerable Bede · 731
Who built the Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?... Where, the evening that the wall of China was finished Did the masons go? — Bertolt Brecht · 1936The history of the world is but the biography of great men. — Thomas Carlyle · 1840In historical events great men-so called-are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. — Leo Tolstoy · 1869
At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. — Cicero · 46 BCPeople will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. — Edmund Burke · 1790
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. — Karl Marx · 1848What I did that was new was to prove... That the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat. — Karl Marx · 1852
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. — Karl Marx · 1852That 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 Huxley · 1956
Human nature2 quotes
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 Huxley · 1956History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. — Abba Eban · 1970
Ignorance2 quotes
At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. — Cicero · 46 BC
Oppression2 quotes
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. — Karl Marx · 1848The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. — Milan Kundera · 1979
Truth2 quotes
You can't get at the truth by writing history; only the novelist can do that. — Gerald Brenan · 1986So poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history, for while poetry is concerned with universal truth, history treats of particular facts. — Aristotle · 335 BC
Boredom1 quote
The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, and would soon bring to an end all the static Utopias and the farmyard civilization of the Fabians. — William Ralph Inge · 1948
Communism1 quote
What I did that was new was to prove... That the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat. — Karl Marx · 1852
The history of things that didn’t happen has never been written. — Henry Kissinger · 1972
Education1 quote
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. — John Maynard Keynes · 1926
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. — John Maynard Keynes · 1926
Egypt1 quote
Think of it, soldiers; from the summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you. — Napoleon Bonaparte · 1823
Empathy1 quote
Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love... If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. — Carl Sagan · 1980
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. — Milan Kundera · 1979
The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions, and would soon bring to an end all the static Utopias and the farmyard civilization of the Fabians. — William Ralph Inge · 1948
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. — John Maynard Keynes · 1926
Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love... If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. — Carl Sagan · 1980
The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Memory1 quote
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. — Milan Kundera · 1979
Nations1 quote
The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. — Willa Cather · 1913
You can't get at the truth by writing history; only the novelist can do that. — Gerald Brenan · 1986
Novels1 quote
You can't get at the truth by writing history; only the novelist can do that. — Gerald Brenan · 1986
History is a relay of revolutions. — Saul Alinsky · 1971
Poetry1 quote
So poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history, for while poetry is concerned with universal truth, history treats of particular facts. — Aristotle · 335 BC