History Quotes

Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
A history.

William Cowper

History is merely gossip.

Oscar Wilde

As soon as histories are properly told there is no more need of romances.

Walt Whitman

Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.

Mary McCarthy

It is part of my creed that the only poetry is history, could we tell it right.

Thomas Carlyle

The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in.

John Greenleaf Whittier

People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.

James Baldwin

History is philosophy teaching by examples.

Thucydides

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.

Pearl Buck

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

Robert A. Heinlein

History may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all.

Fernand Braudel

History abhors determinism, but cannot tolerate chance.

Bernard De Voto

Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up. I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success the earliest spark in the dreaming youth -- is this: dream a great dream.

John A. Appleman

Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I'll give you a stock clerk.

J.C. Penney

History is the science of what never happens twice.

Paul Valery