History Quotes

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

  George Bernard Shaw

  Funny, Humor, Historical

  34 Copy quote

• History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Life, Encouragement

  Twitter post from Jan 19, 2016

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• The study of History is the beginning of wisdom.

  Jean Bodin

  Wisdom, Learning, Study

  69 Copy quote

• History is written by the victors.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Humorous, Winning

  Edmund Murray, Winston Churchill, Martin Gilbert (1995). “Proceedings of the International Churchill Societies 1992-1993”, Churchill Center

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• That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

  Aldous Huxley

  Learning, Health, Men

  Collected Essays (1959) "Case of Voluntary Ignorance"

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• History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

  David McCullough

  Who We Are, Way, Navigation

  FaceBook post by David McCullough from Aug 13, 2012

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  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  George Santayana

  Past, Infancy Is, Progress

  "The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress", Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense by George Santayana, 1905-1906.

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• Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

  George Orwell

  Dream, Time, Peace

  Nineteen Eighty-Four pt. 1, ch. 3 (1949) See Orwell 19

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• If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Writing, Stories, Taught

  30 Copy quote

• Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

  H. G. Wells

  Education, Appreciation, Witty

  Outline of History (1920) vol. 2, ch. 41, pt. 4

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• We need to study the whole of history, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Fall, Needs, Study

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• To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Wall, Thinking, People

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  This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

  Neil Armstrong

  Motivational, Positive, Moon

  In New York Times 31 July 1969, p. 20

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• We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Historical, Civil Rights

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.13, Beacon Press

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• The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

  Mark Twain

  Past, Doe, Rhyme

  29 Copy quote

• If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development

  Aristotle

  Development, Ifs

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• For history is to the nation as memory is to the individual.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Memories, Individual, Nations

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• A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Future, Past, Historical

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.223, Penguin

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• What is past is prologue.

  William Shakespeare

  Time, Past, Prologue

  'The Tempest' (1611) act 2, sc. 1, l. [261]

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• The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

  Harry S. Truman

  Presidential, World, Knows

  "Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman" by Merle Miller, (p. 26), 1974.

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• History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Fake People, Reality, Historical

  "The Old Regime and the Revolution". Book by Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 88, 1856.

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• The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Inspirational, Motivational, Interesting

  Epistolae ad atticum Book IX, Section 5

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• No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Greatness, World

  On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic "The Hero as Divinity" (1841)

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• History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Memories, Men, Written

  "A Defence of Poetry" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1821.

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• History never repeats itself. Man always does.

  Voltaire

  Men, Doe, Repeats

  31 Copy quote