History Quotes: Timeless Wisdom from the Past

"The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down"

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon"

"History is a set of lies agreed upon"

"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect"

Walter Scott, Novelist

"We have our own history, our own language, our own culture. But our destiny is also tied up with the destinies of other people - history has made us all South Africans"

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Leader

"It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do"

Benito Mussolini, Politician

"We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it"

John F. Kennedy, President

"History takes time. History makes memory"

Gertrude Stein, Author

"The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker"

Richard M. Nixon, President

"We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes"

Doug Coupland, Author

"But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding"

Marc Bloch, Historian

"Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion"

Timothy Garton Ash, Author

"In the long course of history, having people who understand your thought is much greater security than another submarine"

J. William Fulbright, Politician

"The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion"

Potter Stewart, Judge

"When you say things like, 'We have to wipe out the Taliban,' what does that mean? The Taliban is not a fixed number of people. The Taliban is an ideology that has sprung out of a history that, you know, America created anyway"

Arundhati Roy, Novelist

"Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both"

C. Wright Mills, Sociologist

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman"

Virginia Woolf, Author

"Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him"

Dwight D. Eisenhower, President

"History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology"

W. H. Auden, Poet

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments"

George Washington, President

"While we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed"

Mattie Stepanek, Poet

"The future belongs to the strong; the weak will be swept away by the tide of history"

Wilhelm II, Statesman

"Time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies; history has no place for them"

Norodom Sihanouk, Royalty

"History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them"

B. R. Ambedkar, Politician

"History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions"

Ted Koppel, Journalist

"The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting"

Mary Douglas, Scientist

"I take office during the most difficult moment in the country's recent history. The country can be saved - it's up to us. I think it is obvious for those who support this government to undertake the commitment and ensure that our country's euro membership is not endangered"

Lucas Papademos, Politician

"I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments"

Friedrich August von Hayek, Economist

"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire"

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Philosopher

"History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake"

Ismail Kadare, Novelist

"History shows that no enemy remains hostile forever, nor do friends remain friendly forever. For that reason, we intend to have normal relations with all"

Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Statesman

"The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts"

Derek Walcott, Playwright