Quotes About History

If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)

France is great because she is France.

History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.

We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption. Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent, has one dupe,--history.

Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of the ages.

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are done, we recognize one thing: that the human race has been badly manhandled, but that it has moved forward.

Ninety-three was the war of Europe against France, and of France against Paris. And what was the Revolution? It was the victory of France over Europe, and of Paris over France. Hence the immensity of that terrible moment?, '93, greater than all the rest of the century

As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.

True history being a mixture of all things, the true historian mingles in everything.

All history is nothing but wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other.

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory

It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success wears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History.

Was it possible that Napoleon should have won that battle? We answer No. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Because of God.

great events have incalculable results.

Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race.

The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.

Les contre-façons du passé prennent de faux noms et s'appellent volontiers l'avenir. Ce revenant, le passé, est sujet à falsifier son passe-port. Mettons-nous au fait du piège. Défions-nous. Le passé a un visage, la superstition, et un masque, l'hypocrisie. Dénonçons le visage et arrachons le masque.

The four walls of the living redoubt had fallen, hardly could a quivering be detected here and there among the corpses; and thus the French legions, grander than the Roman legions, expired at Mont-Saint-Jean on ground soaked in rain and blood, in the somber wheatfields, at the spot where today at four in the morning, whistling, and gaily whipping up his horse, Joseph drives by with the mail from Nivelles.

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognized: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.

Machiavelli is not an evil genius, nor a demon, nor a miserable and cowardly writer; he is nothing but the fact. And he is not only the Italian fact; he is the European fact, the fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the presence of the moral idea of the nineteenth.

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this fact is recognized,—that the human race has been treated harshly, but that it has progressed.

A beautiful woman is a casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanour. All the invasions of history have been determined by petticoats.

S'il avait eu le Pérou dans sa poche, certainement il l'eût donné à la danseuse ; mais Gringoire n'avait pas le Pérou, et d'ailleurs l'Amérique n'était pas encore découverte.