Quotes About History

How do we seize the past? Can we ever do so?

We may choose to freeze a moment and say that it all 'began' then, but as an historian I have to tell you that such labelling is intellectually indefensible. What we are looking at is almost always a replica, if that is the locally fashionable term, of something earlier. There is no prime moment.

Istorija n?ra nugal?toj? melai <...>, tai veikiau išgyvenusi?j? prisiminimai, ir dauguma j? n?ra nei nugal?tojai, nei pralaim?jusieji.

Istorija yra žinomyb?, atsirandanti atminties netobulum? ir dokument? netikslum? susikirtimo taške.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.' 

We all know objective truth is not obtainable, that when some event occurs we shall have a multiplicity of subjective truths which we assess and then fabulate into history, into some God-eyed version of what 'really' happened.

History is the lies of the victors," I replied, a little too quickly. "Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated.

The past is the present's toy and plaything, gratifyingly unable to answer back.

On the other hand, the emotional record was not like a history book; its truths were constantly changing, and true even when incompatible.

From The Noise of Time: What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves--the music of our being--which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history.

History is a raw onion sandwich, sir." "For what reason?" "It just repeats, sir. It burps. We've seen it again and again this year. Same old story, same old oscillation between tyranny and rebellion, war and peace, prosperity and impoverishment.

What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves – the music of our being – which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history.

drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history. This

Istorija yra nugal?toj? melas, tik reikia pridurti, jog tai ir nugal?t?j? saviapgaul?.

He did not want to make himself into a dramatic character. But sometimes, as his mind skittered in the small hours, he thought: so this is what history has come to. All that striving and idealism and hope and progress and science and art and conscience, and it all ends like this, with a man standing by a lift, at his feet a small case containing cigarettes, underwear and tooth powder; standing there and waiting to be taken away.

L'arte appartiene a tutti e a nessuno. L'arte appartiene a tutti i tempi e a nessun tempo in particolare. L'arte appartiene a chi la produce e a chi l'assapora. L'arte non appartiene più al Popolo e al Partito di quanto una volta non appartenesse all'aristocrazia e ai mecenati. L'arte è il mormorio della storia, udibile al di là del rumore del tempo. L'arte non esiste per sé: esiste per il pubblico.

I survived. "He survived to tell the tale"—that's what people say, don't they? History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.

The past, as we have been told so many times, is a foreign country where things are done differently.

The first poets were gods. Poetry began with the bicameral mind. The god-side of our ancient mentality, at least in a certain period of history, usually or perhaps always spoke in verse. This means that most men at one time, throughout the day, were hearing poetry (of a sort) composed and spoken within their own minds.

Others went further: on one of Stanley's expeditions, James Jameson, heir to an Irish whiskey fortune, bought an eleven-year-old girl so he could sketch her being dismembered and eaten.

Así es cómo funciona el olvido: eliminando el pasado y no hablando nunca de él.

How he felt (hard as a wall, safe as a house, dangerous as a wild animal), how he smelled (sweat, sawdust, smoke, musk, sex), how he tasted (like sin, if sin was a liqueur)- taken together they should have all comprised an adventure. And then a lesson. And then be rapidly consigned to history.

Czechoslovakian

Bravo, Monsieur Grant," Breton said, and everyone applauded. "A secret history.