History Quotes

• A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Future, Past, Historical

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.223, Penguin

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• That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

  Aldous Huxley

  Learning, Health, Men

  Collected Essays (1959) "Case of Voluntary Ignorance"

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  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  George Santayana

  Past, Infancy Is, Progress

  "The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress", Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense by George Santayana, 1905-1906.

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• The study of History is the beginning of wisdom.

  Jean Bodin

  Wisdom, Learning, Study

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  This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

  Neil Armstrong

  Motivational, Positive, Moon

  In New York Times 31 July 1969, p. 20

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• History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Life, Encouragement

  Twitter post from Jan 19, 2016

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• To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Wall, Thinking, People

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• History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

  David McCullough

  Who We Are, Way, Navigation

  FaceBook post by David McCullough from Aug 13, 2012

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• We cannot escape history.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

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• Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

  George Orwell

  Dream, Time, Peace

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 3 (1949) See Orwell 19

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• What you do is your history. What you set in motion is your legacy.

  Leonard Sweet

  Inspirational, Life, New Beginnings

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• The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

  Harry S. Truman

  Presidential, World, Knows

  "Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman" by Merle Miller, (p. 26), 1974.

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• History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Sad, Wisdom, Bad Relationship

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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• Augustus gradually increased his powers, taking over those of the senate, the executives and the laws. The aristocracy received wealth and position in proportion to their willingness to accept slavery. The state had been transformed, and the old Roman character gone for ever. Equality among citizens was completely abandoned. All now waited on the imperial command.

  Tacitus

  Character, Law, Aristocracy

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• We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Funny, Humor, Historical

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  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

  Life, Change, Wise

  1952 In Time, 6 Oct.

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• History is a vast early warning system.

  Norman Cousins

  Historical, Warning

  "Saturday Review" Magazine, April 15, 1978.

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  Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.

  Euripides

  Inspirational, Life, Education

  Euripides (1931). “Four plays of Euripides: Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, & Iphigeneia among the Taurians”, Stanford University Press

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• Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Ignorance, Literature, Causes

  Letter to George Sand, September 8, 1871.

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• A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.

  David McCullough

  Past, Forget, Individual

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• The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Wisdom, Past, Men

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• The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

  William James

  Fear, Past, Mind

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• The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

  Mark Twain

  Past, Doe, Rhyme

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• History is the study of lies, anyway, because no witness ever recalls events with total accuracy, not even eyewitnesses.

  Nancy Pickard

  Lying, Events, Study

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• History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Light, Witness

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