History Quotes
Carlyle leads by count, with Yuval Noah Harari, Will Durant and Isaac Asimov close behind. The sourced picks include Karl Popper’s claim in The Open Society (1945) that there is no history of mankind, only many histories of aspects of human life, and Oscar Wilde’s line from 1891 that anybody can make history but only a great man can write it.
The Churchill line “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it” is flagged as misattributed. What the notes give is his House of Commons speech of 23 January 1948, in which he proposed to leave the past to history, especially as he intended to write that history. A line on Anglo-Irish history credited to Shaw is flagged too, and the notes record the more common, punchier version of it.
History, as it comes into our daily lives, is charged with surprise and shock.
When history moves — really moves — it does so in great convulsive jolts.
History is full of the accounts of those who imposed their absolute power against popular will.
The people of Myanmar will go down in history for being a part of the formation of a new nation.
The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from.
Jesus, not Cæsar, I repeat,—this is the meaning of our history and democracy.
The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.
After a great war, history is written by the victors and legends develop which glorify them.
To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.