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History is of two kinds—there is the official history taught in schools, a lying compilation ad usum delphini; and there is the secret history which deals with the real causes of events—a scandalous chronicle.

— Honoré de Balzac Lost Illusions (1837)

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More quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of the Spiritual world.

Séraphîta (1835)

The most real of all splendors are not in outward things, they are within us.

Séraphîta (1835)

Clouds signify the veil of the Most High.

Séraphîta (1835)

Tone is light in another shape. In music, instruments perform the functions of the colours employed in painting.

Gambara (1837)

All human power is a compound of time and patience.

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Honoré de Balzac (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.