Quotes on History


History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), Pro Publio Sestio



History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794)



Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)



Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905



History is powerful stuff. One day your world is fine. The next day it's knocked for a metaphysical loop. Was Napoleon really at Waterloo? Would that change what I had for breakfast?
Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Body in Question, 1991



History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we made today.
Henry Ford (1863 - 1947), Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916



For four-fifths of our history, our planet was populated by pond scum.
J. W. Schopf



History never looks like history when you are living through it.
John W. Gardner (1912 - ), quoted by Bill Moyers



History is the short trudge from Adam to atom.
Leonard Louis Levinson



History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)