Best History Quotes

• The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

  Walter Bagehot

  Art, Light, History

  Walter Bagehot (2010). “Physics and Politics: Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and Inheritance to Political Society”, p.62, Cambridge University Press

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• Our best history is still poetry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  History, Stills

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.99, Harvard University Press

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• The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  History, Forever, Mind

  John Morley, Thomas B. Macaulay (2016). “Machiavelli : the Founder of the Political”, p.94, Editions Le Mono

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• I joined a gym recently. I don't have the best history in the world of sticking with my fitness regimens, but I feel like this time's gonna be different. I figure one of two things is gonna happen: either I'll get into shape, or I'll just resign myself to paying an $85 a month fat tax.

  Christian Finnegan

  Two, History, Different

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• Since I was a kid. I had this series by Ballantine Books about the history of World Wars I and II. In my 20s, it was the Vietnam War literature of novelists like Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, and Tobias Wolff, and then nonfiction such as "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan and "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam . Those are the two best histories of Vietnam.

  George Packer

  Lying, War, Book

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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