Power is transient, but the deeds of those who wield it can leave an indelible mark on history.
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.
Wealth that can last generations can now be attained in the shortest time ever in history.
History is always lying before you, unnoticed: till you suddenly see it, as we do now.
‘Calcutta has still not recovered from history: people mourn the past, and abhor it deeply.’
We must begin to find the untranslatables in each culture and return them to world history.