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.
Acts of injustice done
Between the setting and the rising sun
In history lie like bones, each one.
Religion is the most inflammatory enemy-labelling device in history.
The train of history makes sharp turns and those who are not skilled riders fall off the train.
Keeping Germany from acting too German (or at least too Prussian) is an important lesson of history.
We are going through a period with no precedent in American history.
Two thousand years of history Black History could not be wiped away so easily.
My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.