History Quotes - Page 37

• Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.

  Paul Rodriguez

  Funny, War, Teaching

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• Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.

  Samuel Butler

  Past, Existence, Historian

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• There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Past, Race, Hands

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• The first man to fence in a piece of land, saying "this is mine" and who found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.

  Henri Rousseau

  Real, Believe, Simple

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• History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction.

  Voltaire

  Hands, Fiction, Fables

  Voltaire (1955). “Voltaire's Alphabet of wit”

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• Serious affairs and history are carefully laid snares for the uninformed.

  Dejan Stojanovic

  Serious, Affair, Snares

  "The Sun Watches the Sun". Book by Dejan Stojanovic (Sequence: "A Game", Chapter: "Game III", p. 98), June 13, 2012.

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• History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.

  Voltaire

  Invention, Imaginative, Series

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• History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.

  Voltaire

  Shoes, Sound, Slippers

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• As the primary end of History is to record truth, impartiality, fidelity and accuracy are the fundamental qualities of an Historian.

  Hugh Blair

  Quality, Fundamentals, Records

  Hugh Blair (1858). “Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Chiefly from the Lectures of Dr. Blair”, p.263

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• All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon

  Voltaire

  Historical, Fables, Ancient

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• History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page.

  Lord Byron

  Art, Philosophy, Historical

  Lord Byron, Lord George Gordon Byron (2013). “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”, p.164, Cambridge University Press

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• The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

  Jessamyn West

  Past, Imagination, World History

  Jessamyn West (1966). “A Matter of Time”

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• He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings.

  Voltaire

  Kings, Men

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• A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration.

  Voltaire

  Europe, America, Torches

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• I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'.

  John Adams

  Lying, Responsibility, Years

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.113

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• This (Vietnam) was a land of rebellious barons. It was like Europe in the Middle Ages. But what were the Americans doing here? Columbus had not yet discovered their country.

  Graham Greene

  Country, Europe, Land

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• America seemed a virgin land waiting for civilization. But Europe had made the wilderness it found; America was not a virgin, she was a widow.

  Ronald Wright

  Europe, Land, Civilization

  Ronald Wright (2005). “Stolen Continents: Five Hundered Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas”, p.91, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to recover her liberties, they were restored by men of the United Provinces.

  George Bancroft

  Men, Knowing, Liberty

  George Bancroft (1875). “History of the United States: From the Discovery of the American Continent”, p.59

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• The dead hand has too long hampered the freedom of the living.

  James Robertson

  Freedom, Hands, Long

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• Why change the world? Change worlds!

  Henry Miller

  Art, Philosophy, World

  Henry Miller (1962). “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”, p.190, New Directions Publishing

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• Historians are gossips who tease the dead

  Voltaire

  Gossip, Tease, Historian

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• The true use of history, whether civil or military, is not to make man clever for the next time, it is to make him wise forever.

  Michael Howard

  Wise, Wisdom, Clever

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• The history of the world is the history of the privileged few.

  Henry Miller

  World, World History, Privileged

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• We cannot adopt the way of living that was satisfactory a hundred years ago. The world in which we live has changed, and we must change with it.

  Felix Adler

  Change, Years, World

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• What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them.

  Voltaire

  Rights, Should, Duty

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.148, Penguin

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