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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:

A king is history's slave.

Leo Tolstoy War and Peace (1865)

In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq.

George W. Bush Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (2003)

But just to finish, I got more votes than any Republican in history by far. In fact, I got more votes than any president, sitting president in history by far.

Donald Trump

The greatest football team in the history of civilization is the Pittsburgh Steelers of 1975-1980.

Rush Limbaugh

This moment in history requires women to lead the movement for radical change (p 203)

Bella Abzug Bella!: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington (1972)

Leader Abdullah Öcalan
"To understand history is to understand the present."

Abdullah Öcalan

Do you expect me, after all my history as a militant and as one of the Iraqi leaders, to go to an American prison – to go to Guantanamo? I would rather die

Tariq Aziz

You cannot run history in a laboratory and see... the social consequences of invent[ion].

Yuval Noah Harari Next Phase of Intelligence (2026)

We are now at the most critical crossroads in the history of humanity.

Christiana Figueres Interview with NPR (2020)

History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.

Alan Bean An Interview with Alan Bean (1992)

I stood close to the materialist conception of history, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school.

Alexandra Kollontai The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

[W]e have, in many ways, the worst political class in our country's history.

Glenn Reynolds

In this century we have seen into the heart of the atom. We transformed it—and history—forever. But we have also seen into the heart of the heart.

Marilyn Ferguson The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980)

The history of India was constructed in accordance with nineteenth century European views on what history should be and what was thought to be Indian history.

Romila Thapar

The political ideologues of the Hindu Right endorse a history rooted in colonial interpretations and are anxious to make that period of history a Hindu utopia.

Romila Thapar

The contents of a house can trigger all sorts of revisions to family history. (p29)

Louise Erdrich The Painted Drum (2005)

To walk on this earth is to walk on a living past, on the open pages of history and geology. ("Creations" p79)

Linda Hogan Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (1995)

Even the land gives in to history. (from Prologue)

Linda Hogan People of the Whale (2008)

When I was a child, I learned two types of history-the one at home and the one at school.

Vicki L. Ruiz

To paraphrase writer and philosopher George Santayana, those who do not learn from history are doomed, and dare I say, cursed and condemned to repeat it.

J. Sai Deepak

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