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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.

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Most quoted on history:

The greatest country in the history in the world is being attacked. So all of this (baseball) doesn"t mean very much.

Bud Selig

It is... ironic that, given its subsequent history of Jew-hatred, Christianity should become the vehicle by which Jewish values entered the mainstream.

Thomas Cahill Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003)

It has broken forth where the Spirit listed, and its history is mainly the story of the saintly lives through which it has appeared.

Rufus Jones Social Law in the Spiritual World (1904)

History does not show greed of gain as the motive of the great steps in industrial progress.

J. A. Hobson The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906)

I cannot hide from you that I am quite nervous. I am not taking on this job at the easiest point in Greek history.

Euclid Tsakalotos

History shows there are no "one day" dictatorships. When democracies fall, they typically fall completely.

Robert Reich

More than any other American, Lincoln's name has gone into history. He gave all Americans, indeed all people everywhere, reason to remember that he had lived.

James M. McPherson James M. McPherson. Abraham Lincoln (2009)

If you don't know your history, you don't know who you are. Holds true for nations too.

Joanne B. Freeman

Most of world history is a story of violent conflict of servitude and suffering.

Liz Cheney Now The Real Work Begins (2022)

History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.

Liz Cheney

The Italian Government has now written her perfidy indelibly with letters of blood on the pages of history.

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg

Art is one of the key means we can use to document and showcase our history. Films, documentaries- all are meaningful in our struggle.

Monica Tabengwa

The history of more than 80 previous boom and bust societies... reveals how and why Homo colossus is destined for near-term extinction.

Michael Dowd Hopium Dealers Hall of Fame (2022)

We have behind us a whole century of mass madness. What have we learned from it if we do not recognize history repeating itself in a new guise?

Oksana Zabuzhko

History itself was a massive n=1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.

James S. A. Corey Babylon's Ashes (2016)

Had Bob LaFollette become president of the United States, our history today undoubtedly would have been much better.

Mildred Barber Abel

There's a tradition in Massachusetts, starting with the North Bridge in Concord, with U.S. history starting here, a history of service. We take care of our own.

Thomas G. Kelley Beyond Glory (2003)

History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead.

Wilbur Smith

World history is revolving around the Danzig and Tianjin questions. … I feel that the gears of world history are accelerating still further.

Inejirō Asanuma

I do love these ancient ruins.
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history.

John Webster

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