Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

History belongs to the winner.

History is something that never happened, written by a man who wasn't there.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

Qualities absolutely necessary for a historian: Imagination. Prejudice. The power of writing your own biography at the same time.

History's like a story in a way: it depends on who's telling it.

Just as philosophy is the study of other people's misconceptions, so history is the study of other people's mistakes.

History repeats itself; historians repeat each other.

Most history is a record of the triumphs, disasters, and follies of top people. The black hole in it is the way of life of mute, inglorious men and women who make no nuisance of themselves in the world.

All history, of course, is the history of wars.

Give the historians something to write about.

A land without ruins is a land without memories--a land without memories is a land without history.

The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.

The man who sees two or three generations is like someone who sits in a conjurer's booth at a fair and sees the tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

I have no history but the length of my bones.

History as a discipline can be characterized as having a collective forgetfulness about women.

To give an accurate description of what never happened is the proper occupation of the historian.

There is no life that does not contribute to history.

Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do.

History: An account, mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.