Quotes About History

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.

Historians are gossips who tease the dead.

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

History is no more than the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or never inventors.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

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

History should be written as philosophy.

History supplies little beyond a list of those who have accommodated themselves with the property of others.

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

The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

It is understood that when we speak of history we do not allude to the unspeakable trash contained in public school text-books (which in general resemble a cellar junk-shop of chronologies, epaulettes, bad drawings, and silly tales, and are a striking instance of the corrupting influence of State management of education, by which the mediocre, nay the absolutely empty, is made to survive)….

Nature is earlier than man, but man is earlier than natural science.

All is changed, changed utterly A terrible beauty is born

I was the first comic in world history, so they told me, to pick fights with children.

after twenty centuries of stony sleep, what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?" W.B. Yeats - from 'The Second Coming

discerning men have described Communism as reversing and negating history. It has turned man against himself. Instead of solving the many complex problems of modern life, Marxism's negative approach has simply resurrected primitive problems which past generations of struggling humanity had already succeeding in solving.

One of the forgotten lessons of U.S. history is the fact that the American Founding Fathers tried Communism before they tried capitalistic free enterprise.