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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.

Random quote on History

Most quoted on history:

If it is the present that calls us to activism, it is history that must nourish our choices and commitment.

Adrienne Rich Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985 (1986)

People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.

Chinua Achebe There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (2012)

This is the first time in history that we’ve had this level of luxury, so we have a new opportunity to rethink the way we approach God.

Warren Farrell Interview by Jonathan Robinson (1994)

History proves . . . that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.

Ben Bernanke

This race of armaments made Europe an armed camp and laid the foundations for the most colossal slaughter in human history.

Kirby Page What is War? (1924)

The history of mathematics throws little light on the psychology of mathematical invention.

George Frederick James Temple

What biological processes enable me to review my own history with such emotional vividness?

Eric Kandel In Search of Memory (2006)

The history of Austrian culture and scholarship in the modern era largely paralleled the history of Austrian Jewry.

Eric Kandel In Search of Memory (2006)

“If you think that Man is free to build a new life while the rest of the world drifts by, then you do not know anything of history!”

Terry Brooks

History has thrust on us this critical responsibility which we must fulfill.

Leo Igwe A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa (2012)

It is hard to think away out of our heads a history which has long lain in a remote past but which once lay in the future.

Frederic William Maitland

“We should educate our children about the Rwandan history that lead to the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi so that what happened, should never happen again.”

Solina Nyirahabimana

I am re-writing a black, queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our existence, resistance and persistence.

Zanele Muholi

History is an ongoing process through which we understand and define ourselves and our lives.

Michael Bronski A Queer History of the United States (2011)

We love the coastal vibe and we love the history here in Galveston.

Terri Leo-Wilson

The Great Parterre at Blenheim, planted by Henry Wise, was abolished by Lancelot Brown, a priceless piece of history lost.

Anne Scott-James

Do what the Middle Ages did: bring this new history, this new humanity, around God, around Christ, around cathedrals, around monasteries, around the temple.

Giorgio La Pira

I live everyday of my life with a consciousness of the verdict of history.

Inibehe Effiong

A diversity of human agencies beyond the three states, should build upon our entwined histories towards reconstructing and rediscovering a common humanity.

André du Pisani

Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century.

Arikana Chihombori-Quao Arikana Chihombori-Quao: A profile in courage (2020)

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