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.
The history of the race is but that of the individual "writ large".
On the Festival of Britain, "We are consciously and deliberately determined to make history."
History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same.
People should remember history so they can truly cherish what they have now.
The complete encounter with the Lord will mark an end to history, but it will take place in history.
Pathology is the place where history talks with its loudest most grating voice.
History is about arrogance, vanity and vapidity — who better than me to present it?
Flank attack is the essence of the whole history of warfare.
The age in which true history appeared in India was one of great intellectual and spiritual ferment.