Quotes About History

While what I write is always largely consistent with the records that remain I freely admit that where historical fact proves a barrier to invention, I simply move a detail a little one way or another.

I've always viewed history as my personal treasure chest.

My fascination with history is as much about the present as it is about the past.

I have a very strong sense that we only know where we are by looking clearly at where we've come from.

Their lives were and are consumed with the generally dreadful business of being Russian.

Their [500 Siberian Tribes] presence predated Russians by thousands of years. Yet they are routinely referred to as 'half-thawed humanity' and 'descendants of fish'...

If we want the next generation to know where they came from and thus who they are, we tell them stories so they won't forget. Then they pass the stories on to the generation after them, and so it goes.

All fairy tales, Tolkien argued, echo the gospel of Jesus Christ in some way because the gospel is the True Story; it's the real fairy tale that crashed into the time line of history... 'The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact,' Lewis wrote

There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells. —FLANNERY O'CONNOR9

The dusty tombs of long-dead exorcist priests lay in the alcoves below, surmounted by stone effigies, the features eroded by the passing of time and the reverent caresses of their grateful parishioners, a reminder, she knew all too well, of the brevity of life.

Legend remains victorious in spite of history.

None of them were recent, but that was the nature of family stories. They had to be far enough in the past that they took on a mythic quality.

butternut Yank. One of those who'd fought to save the Union. A slave-owning Union, that is.

Yes, yes, Carter, I see your point. We simply let her ride away. We'll muster her out later. Discharge her for medical reasons. Have the quack in town sign the papers. You're right. Who cares if she tells her story? No one will ever believe that a woman served for two years in the Buffalo Soldiers. Most citizens can't believe niggers of any sex can be real soldiers. Yes, let her go.

saw clear as day what was going to happen: these white men would erase us. Not just me, but all of us. The noble and the wicked. Wager and Vikers. Lemuel and Caldwell. No history book would show us putting up the telegraph lines and guarding the stagecoaches, tracking Indians and making the West safe. Hell, they might not even show the armies of black cowboys that rode the Texas ranges. Or any of our boys who fought in the Rebellion. Solomon? Would they erase Solomon, too?

Again and again, readers told me about the altered version of history they'd been taught during their required two years of state history. It was news to many of these extremely well-educated, progressive readers that Texas had fought not one, but two wars for the right to own slaves.

The last time when I handed over information was in February or March 1949.

Satire is tragedy plus time.

Look back at history - those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

Methuselah lived to be 969 years old . You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than Methuselah saw in his whole lifetime.

Seven years is a short time in the history of a country's democracy. But in this short time, people of Bhutan have developed faith in the institutions of democracy.

At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more reasonable than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just.

I played when I played, and played, I think, against the greatest players in the greatest time in the history of basketball.