This web page comprises a set of quotes about historical past, as uttered by outstanding historians, leaders and different figures. Collectively they provide many broad views about historical past, what it’s, the way it needs to be created and what it needs to be used for. These historical past quotes have been compiled by Alpha Historical past authors.
Quotes about historical past
“One of many deepest impulses in man is the impulse to report, to scratch a drawing on a tusk or hold a diary… The enduring worth of the previous is, one would possibly say, the very foundation of civilisation.”
John Jay Chapman, American writer (1862-1933)
“Historical past is just not the previous however a map of the previous, drawn from a selected perspective, to be helpful to the trendy traveller.”
Henry Glassie, US historian (1941- )
“Historical past is the story of occasions, with reward or blame.”
Cotton Mather, American author and politician (1663-1728)
“Historical past is the research of all of the world’s crime.”
Voltaire, French author and thinker (1694-1778)
“Historical past is who we’re and why we’re the best way we’re.”
David McCullough, American historian (1933- )
“No different self-discipline has its portals so vast open to most people as historical past.”
Johan Huizinga, Dutch historian (1872-1945)
“Historical past offers solutions solely to those that know easy methods to ask questions.”
Hajo Holborn, German-American historian (1902-1969)
“A era which ignores historical past has no previous and no future.”
Robert Heinlein, American writer (1907-1988)
“If you wish to perceive in the present day you need to search yesterday.”
Pearl S. Buck, American novelist (1892-1973)
“Historical past is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our information of it, but when we’re to report it in any respect we should impose some order upon it.”
Henry Steele Commager, American historian (1902-1998)
“Historical past is an unlimited early warning system.”
Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990)
“All the historical past of mankind is, in any case, nothing however a protracted struggle to the demise for the conquest of common status and absolute energy.”
Albert Camus, French-Algerian writer (1913-1960)
“The most effective moments in studying are while you come throughout one thing – a thought, a sense, a approach of issues – which you had thought particular and specific to you. And now, right here it’s, set down by another person, an individual you have got by no means met, somebody even who’s lengthy useless. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and brought yours.”
Alan Bennett, English playwright (1934- )
“What’s the use making an attempt to explain the flowing of a river at anybody second, after which on the subsequent second, after which on the subsequent, and the subsequent, and the subsequent? You put on out. You say ‘There’s a nice river and it flows by way of this land, and we’ve got named it Historical past’.”
Ursula Ok. Le Guin, American author (1929-2018)
Quotes concerning the significance of historical past
“Those that don’t keep in mind the previous are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana, American thinker (1863-1952)
“In the event you don’t know historical past, it’s as when you have been born yesterday. In the event you have been born yesterday then any chief can let you know something.”
Howard Zinn, American historian (1924-2010)
“Research historical past, research historical past. In historical past lies all of the secrets and techniques of statecraft.”
Confucius, Chinese language instructor and thinker (551-479 BC)
“To check historical past means submitting your self to chaos, however however retaining your religion so as and which means.”
Herman Hesse, German author and poet (1877-1962)
“I don’t know a lot about historical past and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all of the historical past on the earth. It means nothing to me. Historical past is kind of bunk. It’s custom. We don’t need custom. We need to stay within the current and the one historical past price a tinker’s rattling is the historical past we make in the present day.”
Henry Ford, American industrialist (1863-1947)
“What expertise and historical past educate is that nations and governments have by no means discovered something from historical past, or acted upon any classes they could have drawn from it.”
Georg Hegel, German thinker (1770-1831)
“Historical past is instructive. What it suggests to folks is that even when they do little issues, in the event that they stroll on the picket line, in the event that they be a part of a vigil, in the event that they write a letter to their native newspaper… Something they do, nonetheless small, turns into a part of a a lot bigger type of circulate of power. And when sufficient folks do sufficient issues, nonetheless small they’re, then change takes place.”
Howard Zinn, American historian (1922-2010)
“Maybe the reason for our modern pessimism is our tendency to view historical past as a turbulent stream of conflicts — between people in financial life, between teams in politics, between creeds in faith, between states in struggle. That is the extra dramatic facet of historical past; it captures the attention of the historian and the curiosity of the reader… Historical past has been too usually an image of the bloody stream. The historical past of civilization is a report of what occurred on the banks.”
Will Durant, American author (1885-1981)
Quotes about historians
“Historians are themselves the merchandise of historical past.”
Paul Conkin and Roland Stromberg, American historians
“Research the historian earlier than you start to check the info.”
Edward Hallett Carr, British historian (1892-1982)
“The historian should serve two masters: the previous and the current.”
Fritz Stern, German-American historian (1926- )
“Maybe no person has modified the course of historical past as a lot because the historians.”
Franklin P. Jones, American journalist (1908-1980)
“Historians are like deaf individuals who go on answering questions that nobody has requested them.”
Leo Tolstoy, Russian author and thinker (1828-1910)
“[The historian is] an unsuccessful novelist.”
H. L. Mencken, American journalist and satirist (1880-1956)
“The nice historian… should be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the pal of reality and of liberty. One who calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by disgrace, or by regret. A simply decide… a stranger to all, of no nation, sure solely by his personal legal guidelines, acknowledging no sovereign, by no means contemplating what this or that man might say of him, however relating faithfully all the pieces because it occurred.”
Lucian, historic Greek author and satirist (c.125-185)
“A historian should be precise, honest and neutral, free from ardour, unbiased by curiosity, worry, resentment or affection. And trustworthy to the reality, which is the mom of historical past, the preserver of nice actions, the enemy of oblivion, the witness of the previous, the director of the longer term.”
B. R. Ambedkar, Indian politician (1891-1956)
Quotes about historiographical perspective
“Historical past is an mixture of half-truths, semi-truths, fables, myths, rumours, prejudices, private narratives, gossip and official prevarications. It’s a canvas upon which 1000’s of artists all through the ages have splashed their conceptions and interpretations of a day and an period.”
Philip D. Jordan, American historian (1903-1980)
“Historical past can be sort to me, for I intend to write down it.”
Winston Churchill, British author and politician (1874-1965)
“Historical past is a set of lies, agreed upon.”
Napoleon Bonaparte, French ruler (1769-1821)
“[History is] an account, largely false, of occasions, largely unimportant, that are caused by rulers, largely knaves, and troopers, largely fools.”
Ambrose Bierce, American satirist (1842-1914)
“Historical past is an argument with out finish.”
Pieter Geyl, Dutch historian (1887-1966)
“Historical past is all the time written by the winners. When two cultures conflict, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the historical past books-books which glorify their very own trigger and disparage the conquered foe.”
Dan Brown, American novelist (1964- )
“The extra I research historical past the extra I realise how little mankind has modified. There are not any new scripts, simply totally different actors.”
Richard Paul Evans, American writer (1962- )
“It could be a good suggestion if the assorted international locations of the world sometimes swapped historical past books, simply to see what the opposite individuals are doing with the identical set of info.”
Invoice Vaughan, American author (1915-1977)
“The reality that each one historic writing, even essentially the most sincere, is unconsciously subjective, since all ages is sure, regardless of itself, to make the useless carry out no matter methods it finds essential for its personal peace of thoughts.”
Carl Becker, American historian (1873-1945)