I wrote somewhere once that the third-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking. With equal truth it may be said that a first-rate mind is not one which does not remember the past, nor is it one which cannot forget the past; it is a mind which will use the past but not be ordered by it. It is a mind independent of everybody and everything but the facts in front of it. It is as little perturbed to find itself sharing a thought with the simple as it is elated to find itself sharing a thought with the subtle.
A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
War with Honour, Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940)
(Source)
Milne wrote this work in repudiation (or perhaps emendation) of his 1934 book, Peace with Honour, which argued that, given the tragedy of World War 1, that similar saber-rattling about the rise of Hitler's Germany was irresponsible and immoral. Having seen the course of fascism in the first years of World War 2, while still espousing pacifist principles, he saw Hitler as an evil that must be defeated.
Quotations about:
history
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I have known some pacifists who wished history taught without reference to wars, and thought that children should be kept as long as possible ignorant of the cruelty in the world. But I cannot praise the “fugitive and cloistered virtue” that depends upon absence of knowledge. As soon as history is taught at all, it should be taught truthfully. If true history contradicts any moral we wish to teach, our moral must be wrong, and we had better abandon it. I quite admit that many people, including some of the most virtuous, find facts inconvenient, but that is due to a certain feebleness in their virtue. A truly robust morality can only be strengthened by the fullest knowledge of what really happens in the world.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 11 “Affection and Sympathy” (1926)
(Source)
You live through time, that little piece of time that is yours, but that piece of time is not only your own life, it is the summing-up of all the other lives that are simultaneous with yours. It is, in other words, History, and what you are is an expression of History, and you do not live your life, but somehow, your life lives you, and you are, therefore, only what History does to you.
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) American poet, novelist, literary critic
Band of Angels, ch. 6 (1955)
(Source)
This is sometimes cited to Warren's World Enough and Time (1950), but is not found there.
Often seen edited down:You live through that little piece of time that is yours, but that piece of time is not only your own life, it is the summing-up of all the other lives that are simultaneous with yours. [...] What you are is an expression of History.
Note that the narrator continues:That is what I have heard said, but we have to try to make sense of what we have lived, or what has lived us, and there are so many questions that cry for an answer, as children gather about your knee and cry for a sweetmeat. No, it would be better to change the comparison and say it is like children gathering about your knee to cry for a story, a bedtime story, and if you can tell the right story, then these children, then these questions, will sleep, and you can, too.
For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind,
Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind.[Car pour faire un désert, Dieu, maître des vivants,
Commence par les rois et finit par les vents.]Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Poem (1876), “The Vanished City [La Ville Disparue],” Legend of the Ages: New Series [La Légende des siècles: La Nouvelle Série], No. 4 (1877) [tr. Carrington (1885)]
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OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Oblivion,” The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
(Source)
Originally published in the "Cynic's Word Book" column in the New York American (1904-09-27), and the "Cynic's Dictionary" column in the San Francisco Examiner (1903-10-28).
When I think of antiquity, the detail that frightens me is that those hundreds of millions of slaves on whose backs civilization rested generation after generation have left behind them no record whatever. We do not even know their names. In the whole of Greek and Roman history, how many slaves’ names are known to you? I can think of two, or possibly three. One is Spartacus and the other is Epictetus. Also, in the Roman room at the British Museum there is a glass jar with the maker’s name inscribed on the bottom, “Felix fecit.” I have a vivid mental picture of poor Felix (a Gaul with red hair and a metal collar round his neck), but in fact he may not have been a slave; so there are only two slaves whose names I definitely know, and probably few people can remember more. The rest have gone down into utter silence.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1942-08), “Looking Back on the Spanish War, ch. 4, Such, Such Were the Joys, essay 8 (1953)
(Source)
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.
Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as “science.” There is only “German science,” “Jewish science” etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, “It never happened” — well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs — and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1942-08), “Looking Back on the Spanish War, ch. 4, Such, Such Were the Joys, essay 8 (1953)
(Source)
This is a central theme in his later novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 13 “Family” (1930)
(Source)
I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1942-08), “Looking Back on the Spanish War, ch. 4, Such, Such Were the Joys, essay 8 (1953)
(Source)
I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-03-30), “Thoughts in Westminster Abbey,” The Spectator, No. 26
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Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
Essay (1891-02), “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” The Fortnightly Review, Vol. 49
(Source)
The intrigues of unworthy courtiers to gain the favour of still more unworthy kings, or the records of murderous battles and sieges, have been dilated on, and told over and over again, with all the eloquence of style and all the charms of fancy; while the circumstances which have most deeply affected the morals and welfare of the people have been passed over with but slight notice, as dry and dull, and capable of neither warmth nor colouring.
Charles Mackay (1814-1889) Scottish poet, journalist, song writer
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, “The South-Sea Bubble” (1841)
(Source)
Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.
[Ἐγγὺς μὲν ἡ σὴ περὶ πάντων λήθη, ἐγγὺς δὲ ἡ πάντων περὶ σοῦ λήθη.]
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations [To Himself; Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν], Book 7, ch. 21 (7.21) (AD 161-180) [tr. Staniforth (1964)]
(Source)
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:The time when thou shalt have forgotten all things, is at hand. And that time also is at hand, when thou thyself shalt be forgotten by all.
[tr. Casaubon (1634), 7.16]'Twill not be long before you will have forgotten all the World; and in a little time, to be even, all the World will forget you too.
[tr. Collier (1701)]The time approaches when you shall forget all things, and be forgotten by all.
[tr. Hutcheson/Moor (1742)]The time is speedily approaching, when you will have forgotten every one, and every one will have forgotten you.
[tr. Graves (1792), 7.19]Near is thy forgetfulness of all things; and near the forgetfulness of thee by all.
[tr. Long (1862)]It will not be long before you will have forgotten all the world, and in a little time all the world will forget you too.
[tr. Collier/Zimmern (1887)]Soon you will have forgotten all; soon all will have forgotten you.
[tr. Rendall (1898)]The time is at hand when you shall forget all things, and when all shall forget you.
[tr. Hutcheson/Chrystal (1902)]A little while and thou wilt have forgotten everything, a little while and everything will have forgotten thee.
[tr. Haines (Loeb) (1916)]Near at hand is your forgetting all; near, too, all forgetting you.
[tr. Farquharson (1944)]Close is the time when you will forget all things; and close, too, thie time when all will forget you.
[tr. Hard (1997 ed.)]Close to forgetting it all, close to being forgotten.
[tr. Hays (2003)]Soon you will have forgotten all things: soon all things will have forgotten you.
[tr. Hammond (2006)]Close is the time when you will forget all things; and close, too, the time when all will forget you.
[tr. Hard (2011 ed.)]
There are many ways in which we’re become much more polite than Americans were historically. Blatant bigotry is no longer tolerated by this society. It exists, but people get into trouble for practicing it. The obligation to be considerate of others has spread to include groups that were excluded at many times.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Interview (2011-08), “Q and A with Miss Manners,” by Arcynta Ali Childs, Smithsonian magazine
(Source)
Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined.
Charles Mackay (1814-1889) Scottish poet, journalist, song writer
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, “The Crusades” (1841)
(Source)
I thank Luther for protesting against the abuses of the church, and I denounce him because he was the enemy of liberty. I thank Calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, and I abhor him because he burned Servetus. I thank Knox for resisting Episcopal persecution, and I hate him because he persecuted in his turn. I thank the Puritans for saying “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God,” and yet I am compelled to say that they were tyrants themselves.
All historical changes finally boil down to the replacement of one ruling class by another. All talk about democracy, liberty, equality, fraternity, all revolutionary movements, all visions of Utopia, or ‘the classless society’, or ‘the Kingdom of Heaven on earth’, are humbug (not necessarily conscious humbug) covering the ambitions of some new class which is elbowing its way into power.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-05), “Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” Polemic Magazine
(Source)
Summarizing Burnham's view of history as given in The Machiavellians (1942). Orwell does not agree with Burnham's thesis.
Published separately as a pamphlet, James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution (1946).
Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-06-26), The Spectator, No. 101
(Source)
Persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done to them.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-06-26), The Spectator, No. 101
(Source)
The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1963)
(Source)
I love to stroll down in the old parts of Beverly Hills because I know of old places that have been built for four or five years.
The past is rich in lessons from which we would greatly profit except that the present is always so full of Special Circumstances.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1963)
(Source)
Happy that nation, fortunate that age, whose history is not diverting.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1740 ed.)
(Source)
The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Essay (1990), “Credo,” Living Philosophies [ed. Clifford Fadiman] (1990 ed.)
(Source)
Later collected in Greetings Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays 1934-1998, Part 5, No. 10 (1999).
There is the moral of all human tales;
‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails,
Wealth — Vice — Corruption, — Barbarism at last.George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 108 (1818)
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I stood in Venice, on the “Bridge of Sighs”;
A Palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the Enchanter’s wand:
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O’er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the wingéd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles!George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 1 (1818)
(Source)
This stanza was written by at least 1817-07-01. Much of the legend of the "Bridge of Sighs" (Ponte de' Sospiri) was made up or misunderstood by Byron, but created a myth that tour guides in Venice repeat to this day.
Historians relate, not so much what is done, as what they would have believed.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1739 ed.)
(Source)
When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do — well, that’s Memoirs.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Essay (1932-03-12), “Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to Senator Borah,” Saturday Evening Post
(Source)
William Borah (1885-1940) was a US Senator from Idaho (1907-1940). He was progressive politically, but an isolationist, a key figure in blocking US approval of the Versailles Treaty or joining the League of Nations.
Collected in Donald Day (ed.), The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949), and Steven K Gragert (ed.), More Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat (1982).
He that does a Memorable Action, and those that Report it, are all but short-liv’d Things.
[Πᾶν ἐφήμερον, καὶ τὸ μνημονεῦον καὶ τὸ μνημονευόμενον.]
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations [To Himself; Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν], Book 4, ch. 35 (4.35) (AD 161-180) [tr. Collier (1701)]
(Source)
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:All things are transitory, and, as it were, but for a day; both those who remember; and the things, and persons remembered.
[tr. Hutcheson/Moor (1742)]Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.
[tr. Long (1862)]He that does a memorable action, and those that report it, are all but short-lived things.
[tr. Collier/Zimmern (1887)]Everything is but for a day, remembrancer alike and the remembered.
[tr. Rendall (1898)]All things are for a day, both what remembers and what is remembered.
[tr. Hutcheson/Chrystal (1902)]Ephemeral all of them, the rememberer as well as the remembered!
[tr. Haines (Loeb) (1916)]All is ephemeral, both what remembers and what is remembered.
[tr. Farquharson (1944)]All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike.
[tr. Staniforth (1964)]All is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.
[tr. Hard (1997 ed.)]Everything transitory -- the knower and the known.
[tr. Hays (2003)]All is ephemeral, both memory and the object of memory.
[tr. Hammond (2006)]They are all short-lived, both those who remember and the remembered.
[tr. Needleman/Piazza (2008)]All is ephemeral, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.
[tr. Hard (2011 ed.)]Everything is transitory, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.
[tr. Gill (2013)]
History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what’s inside the box, how the mechanisms work. What I call the generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds. You are very likely to be fooled about their intentions.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Apprenticeship of an Empirical Skeptic” (2007)
(Source)
You see, tyranny has been discovered very early, and very early really as an enemy. Still, it has never in any way prevented any tyrant from becoming a tyrant. It has not prevented Nero, and has not prevented Caligula. And Nero and Caligula have not prevented a more closer example of what the massive intrusion of criminality can mean for the political process.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Interview (1973-10) with Roger Errera, Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF)
Speaking (most proximately) about the Watergate scandal.
Parts of this interview were turned into an episode of the French TV series "Un certain regard," directed by Jean-Claude Lubtchansky, first broadcast 1974-07-06. This portion of the interview comes at 49:17 in.
The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 1, ch. 1 “What Makes People Unhappy?” (1930)
(Source)
BATTY: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
David Peoples (b. 1940) American screenwriter
Blade Runner (1982) [screenplay with Hampton Fancher]
(Source)
(Source (Video); dialog confirmed)
Roy Batty was played by Rutger Hauer. These lines are not in Philip K. Dick's source story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968).
All of our governments are flawed, most of them disastrously. It’s why history is such a bloody mess.
Kim Stanley Robinson (b. 1952) American writer
Red Mars, Part 2 “The Voyage Out” [Arkady] (1992)
(Source)
We’re all capable of doing great things, and of doing bad things. We have the angels and the demons inside of us, and our lives are a succession of choices. Look at a figure like Woodrow Wilson, one of the most fascinating presidents in American history. He was despicable on racial issues. He was a Southern segregationist of the worst stripe, praising D.W. Griffith and The Birth of a Nation. He effectively was a Ku Klux Klan supporter. But in terms of foreign affairs, and the League of Nations, he had one of the great dreams of our time. The war to end all wars — we make fun of it now, but God, it was an idealistic dream. If he’d been able to achieve it, we’d be building statues of him a hundred feet high, and saying, “This was the greatest man in human history: This was the man who ended war.” He was a racist who tried to end war. Now, does one cancel out the other? Well, they don’t cancel out the other. You can’t make him a hero or a villain. He was both. And we’re all both.
George R. R. Martin (b. 1948) American author and screenwriter [George Raymond Richard Martin]
Interview (2014-04-23) by Mikal Gilmore, “The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone
(Source)
Envy none. Every heart has some secret chamber of horrors, and those who seem the most gay have often the grimmest skeletons.
Minna Antrim (1861-1950) American epigrammatist, writer
Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions (1902)
(Source)
Illustrious deeds, of dazzling brilliance, are represented by politicians as the outcome of great aims, whereas they are usually the result of caprice or passion. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, though ascribed to their rival ambitions to dominate the world, may have been merely a result of jealousy.
[Ces grandes et éclatantes actions qui éblouissent les yeux sont représentées par les politiques comme les effets des grands desseins, au lieu que ce sont d’ordinaire les effets de l’humeur et des passions. Ainsi la guerre d’Auguste et d’Antoine, qu’on rapporte à l’ambition qu’ils avoient de se rendre maîtres du monde, n’étoit peut-être qu’un effet de jalousie.]François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶7 (1665-1678) [tr. Stevens (1939)]
(Source)
A version of this appeared in the 1st edition (1665). Variants in the 1st edition include starting with Les, not Ces, and speaking of des grands intérêts, not desseins. The 1st edition also was much more assertive that it étoit un effet de jalousie (was a result of jealousy).(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Great and heroick actions which dazle their eyes who consider them, are represented by Politicians, as if they were the effects of great Interests; whereas they are ordinarily the effects of humour and passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Marc Antony, which some imputed to the Ambition they had of aspiring to the Empire of the World, was an effect of their mutual jealousie.
[tr. Davies (1669), ¶104]Those great and glorious Actions, that even dazle our Eyes with their Lustre, are represented by Politicians as the result of great Wisdom and excellent design; whereas in truth, they are commonly the effects of Passion and Humour. Thus the War between Augustus and Antony, which is usually thought to proceed from Greatness of Soul, and the Ambition each of them had to become Master of the World, was very probably no more than Envy and Emulation.
[tr. Stanhope (1694), ¶8]Great actions, the lustre of which dazzles us, are represented by politicians as the effects of deep design; whereas they are commonly the effects of caprice and passion. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, supposed to be owing to their ambition to give a master to the world, arose probably from jealousy.
[pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶10; [ed. Lepoittevin-Lacroix (1797), ¶7]Great actions, the lustre of which dazzles us, are by politicians represented as the effects of deep design, whereas they are commonly the effects of caprice and passion. Thus the war between Augustus and Anthony, supposed to be owing to the ambition of giving a master to the world, arose probably from jealousy.
[ed. Carvill (1835), ¶7]Those great and brilliant actions which dazzle our eyes, are represented by politicians as the effects of great designs, instead of which they are commonly the effects of caprice and of the passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, which is attributed to the ambition they had of making themselves masters of the world, was, perhaps, nothing but a result of jealousy.
[ed. Gowens (1851), ¶8]Great and striking actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by politicians as the effect of great designs, instead of which they are commonly caused by the temper and the passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Anthony, which is set down to the ambition they entertained of making themselves masters of the world, was probably but an effect of jealousy.
[tr. Bund/Friswell (1871), ¶7]Historians would have us believe that the most dazzling deeds are the results of deep-laid plans; more often they are the reuslts of men's moods and passions. Thus the war that Augustus waged against Antony, caused, we are told, by their ambition to be masters of the world, was, perchance, but the outcome of jealousy.
[tr. Heard (1917), ¶7]Statesmen will often present those great and striking deeds with which they dazzle our eyes as the outcome of some grand design, whereas in fact they are usually the product of mood and of emotion. Thus the struggle between Augustus and Mark Anthony, portrayed as the result of their conflicting ambition each to become sole master of the world, was perhaps caused simply by mutual jealousy.
[tr. FitzGibbon (1957), ¶7]Politicians explain great and resplendent deeds that dazzle the eye as born of high purpose, where for the most part they derive from whim or passion. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, which we ascribe to their equal ambition to rule the world, was no more, perhaps, than the result of jealousy.
[tr. Kronenberger (1959), ¶7]Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs, whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions. Thus the war between ‘Augustus and Antony, attributed to their passion to seize the mastery of the world, was probably nothing more than a result of jealousy.
[tr. Tancock (1959), ¶7]Those great and brilliant actions that dazzle the eyes of men are represented by politicians as being the effects of great designs; but they are usually the results of temper and the passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, which is supposed to be due to the ambition they both had of making themselves the masters of the world, was perhaps nothing more than an effect of jealousy.
[tr. Whichello (2016) ¶7]
I have always been — I think any student of history almost inevitably is — a cheerful pessimist.
Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
Quoted in Thomas Vinciguerra, “Jacques Barzun ’27: Columbia Avatar,” Columbia College Today (2006-01)
(Source)
Barzun is being quoted in this particular instance from an unclear source, possibly the Independent Women's Forum in 2000.
The history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Lecture (1804-1806), Moral Philosophy, No. 27 “On Habit, Part 2,” Royal Institution, London
(Source)
Collected in his Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849).
Quoted by Theodore Roosevelt in his speech (1901-09-05), "Brotherhood and the Heroic Virtues," Grand Army of the Republic Veterans Reunion, Burlington, Vermont, collected in Roosevelt's The Strenuous LIfe (1902).
The total history of almost anyone would shock almost everyone.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 3 (1963)
(Source)
History is the essence of innumerable Biographies.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Essay (1830-11), “On History,” Fraser’s Magazine Vol. 2, No. 10.
(Source)
Collected as "History," Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827-1855).
A year and a half later, in his essay "Biography" (first published in Fraser's Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 28 (1832-05)), as he was wont to do, Carlyle anonymously quoted himself ("'History,' it has been said, 'is the essence of innumerable Biographies.'").
History, like a vast river, propels logs, vegetation, rafts, and debris; it is full of live and dead things, some destined for resurrection; it mingles many waters and holds in solution invisible substances stolen from distant soils. Anything may become part of it; that is why it can be an image of the continuity of mankind. And it is also why some of its freight turns up again in the social sciences: they were constructed out of the contents of history in the same way as houses in medieval Rome were made out of stones taken from the Coliseum.
Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
Clio and the Doctors: Psycho-History, Quanto-History, & History, ch. 5 “History as Counter-Method and Anti-Abstraction” (1974)
(Source)
And, after all, what is a lie? ‘T is but
The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers. priests, to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
HARRIS: I call it performance art, but my friend Ariel calls it wasting time. History will decide.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Faith,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
(Source)
Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911). Originally published in the "Devil's Dictionary" column in the San Francisco Wasp (1884-06-07).
The mill cannot grind with the water that’s past.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 153 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don’t have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all this, and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf.
Bart D. Ehrman (b. 1955) American Biblical scholar, author
Jesus, Interrupted, ch. 1 “A Historical Assault on Faith” (2009)
(Source)
The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Don Juan, Canto 3, st. 86a “The Isles of Greece,” st. 1 (1821)
(Source)
It is always easy as well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian
The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2, ch. 15 (1781)
(Source)
See La Rochefoucauld.
History ain’t what it is; it’s what some Writer wanted it to be.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Article (1931-03-22), “Letter of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President,” Saturday Evening Post
(Source)
Collected in More Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President (1928) [ed. Steven Gragert].
HARRIS: I call it performance art, but my friend Ariel calls it wasting time. History will decide.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
History is a distillation of Rumour.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
The French Revolution: A History, Part 1, Book 7, ch. 5 (1.7.5) (1837)
(Source)
The original is actually embedded in this sentence:Remarkable [Usher] Maillard, if fame were not an accident, and History a distillation of Rumour, how remarkable wert thou!
Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
[Tout est dit, et l’on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu’il y a des hommes qui pensent.]Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 1 “Of Works of the Mind [Des Ouvrages de l’Esprit],” § 1 (1.1) (1688) [tr. Stewart (1970)]
(Source)
Opening line of the book. La Bruyère's timeline is that of medieval scholars who calculated, from the Bible, that the age of the world to be only several thousand years old.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:We are come too late, after above seven thousand years that there have been men, and men have thought, to say any thing which has not been said already.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]After above seven thousand Years, that there have been Men, and Men have thought, we come too late to say any thing which has not been said already.
[Curll ed. (1713)]We are come too late, by several thousand Years, to say any thing new in Morality.
[Browne ed. (1752)]After above seven thousand years, during which there have been men who have thought, we come too late to say anything that has not been said already.
[tr. Van Laun (1885)]
History is the only consolation left to the peoples, for it teaches them that their ancestors were as unhappy as themselves, or more unhappy.
[En effet, il ne reste guère, pour consoler les peuples, que de leur apprendre que leurs ancêtres ont été aussi malheureux, ou plus malheureux.]Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 8, ¶ 474 (1795) [tr. Mathers (1926)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:In fact there is no longer any way of consoling the people except by teaching them that their forebears were as wretched as they are, or more so.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]Indeed, if one is to console the peoples of the world there is little else one can do but teach them that their ancestors were just as wretched, or more so.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]In effect, there is nearly no way to console peoples except to tell them that their ancestors were as unfortunate or more unfortunate than they are.
[tr. Siniscalchi (1994), ¶ 473]
Nearly all of history is only a string of horrors. If tyrants dismiss it while they are alive, it seems that their successors allow people to transmit to posterity the crimes of their predecessors, in order to offer diversion away from the horror that they inspire themselves.
[Presque toute l’Histoire n’est qu’une suite d’horreurs. Si les tyrans la détestent, tandis qu’ils vivent, il semble que leurs successeurs souffrent qu’on transmette à la postérité les crimes de leurs devanciers, pour faire diversion à l’horreur qu’ils inspirent eux-mêmes.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 8, ¶ 474 (1795) [tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Nearly all History is a procession of horrors; but, although tyrants hate History in their own lifetime, a general transmission of such crimes is not unpleasing to their descendants, for it distracts attention from their own.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]Almost the whole of history is nothing but a series of horrors. If tyrants detest it while they are alive, their successors seem willing to allow the crimes of their predecessors to be transmitted to posterity, to divert attention from the horror that they themselves inspire.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]Almost the whole of history is nothing more than a series of horrors. If tyrants detest it while they are alive, it seems that their that their successors suffer that the crimes of their predecessors should be laid at the door of posterity, in order to divert attention from the horrors to which they themselves give rise.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]Almost all of history is a story of horror. If tyrants condemn it during their lifetime, their successors seem to allow the crimes of their predecessors to be passed on to posterity, thereby diverting attention from the horror they themselves inspire.
[tr. Parmée (2003)]
Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) American poet, novelist, literary critic
Brother to Dragons, Foreword (1953)
(Source)
According to Oscar Wilde, all that experience teaches us is that history repeats itself, and that the sin we do once and with loathing we will do many times and with pleasure. But the neurotic knows that the sin he does once and with loathing he will do many times and with loathing.
You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who’s layin there?
Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) American novelist, playwright, screenwriter
No Country for Old Men (2005)
(Source)
The question is then how can we decide what anybody in the ancient world said. We can’t. We wish we could. It would be nice if we could. You would like to think that because you can go to the store and buy an edition of Plato that you are actually reading Plato, but the problem is that we just do not have the kind of evidence that we need in order to establish what ancient authors actually wrote. In some cases, we have all these data, and sometimes we have just one manuscript. Sometimes we have a manuscript that was written two-thousand years later, and that’s it! So, as much as we would like to be able to say we know what ancient authors actually wrote, we often just do not know.
Bart D. Ehrman (b. 1955) American Biblical scholar, author
“The Textual Reliability of the New Testament: A Dialogue between Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace,” Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture (2008-04-04/05)
(Source)
Reprinted in Robert Stewart, ed., The Reliability of the New Testament (2011).
Books are embalmed minds; they make the great of other days our present teachers. Through books we look, as through “a glass darkly,” upon those vast multitudes whose bodies have passed to dust, and form the earth we tread upon, and through them we, in our turn, shall be made known to coming time.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought, Vol. 1, “Books” (1862)
(Source)
Study the historian before you begin to study the facts. This is, after all, not very abstruse. It is what is already done by the intelligent undergraduate who, when recommended to read a work by that great scholar Jones of St. Jude’s, goes round to a friend at St. Jude’s to ask what sort of chap Jones is, and what bees he has in his bonnet. When you read a work of history, always listen out for the buzzing. If you can detect none, either you are tone deaf or your historian is a dull dog. The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use – these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation.
E. H. Carr (1892-1982) British historian, journalist, international relations theorist [Edward Hallett "Ted" Carr]
What Is History?, ch. 1 (1961)
(Source)
Physical scourges and the calamities of human nature rendered society necessary. Society has added to natural misfortunes. The drawbacks of society have made government necessary, and government adds to society’s misfortunes. There is the history of human nature in a nutshell.
[Les fléaux physiques, et les calamités de la nature humaine ont rendu la Société nécessaire. La Société a ajouté aux malheurs de la Nature. Les inconvéniens de la Société ont amené la nécessité du gouvernement, et le gouvernement ajoute aux malheurs de la Société. Voilà l’histoire de la nature humaine.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 1, ¶ 67 (1795) [tr. Hutchinson (1902)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:The physical plagues and misfortunes of human nature have made Society necessary. Society has added to the ills of Nature. The difficulties of Society have created the necessity for Government, and Government now adds to the evils of Society. There you have the history of man.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]Physical disasters and the calamities of human nature have rendered society necessary. To the miseries of nature, society has added its own. The difficulties of society have evolved the necessity for government, and government has added to the miseries of society. This is the history of human nature.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]Physical disasters and the calamities of human nature made society necessary. Society's ordeals were then added to those of nature. The drawbacks of society led to the need for government, whereupon the evils of government were added to those of society. Such is the history of human nature.
[tr. Dusinberre (1992)]Physical plagues and the calamities of nature made society necessary. Society added to the misfortunes of nature. The inconveniences of society brought the necessity of government, and the government added to the misfortunes of society. This is the history of human nature.
[tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]
Hey all!! Just found out I’m woke … all this time I just thought I was good at history.
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Twitter (2022-03-30)
(Source)
Dissatisfaction with the world in which we live and determination to realize one that shall be better, are the prevailing characteristics of the modern spirit.
G. Lowes Dickinson (1862-1932) British political scientist and philosopher [Goldsworthy "Goldie" Lowes Dickinson]
The Greek View of Life, ch. 5 “Conclusion” (1911)
(Source)
Historians may be dogmatists, I know, though not so often now as when history was dogma. At least you will perhaps agree that even a smattering of history and especially of letters will go far to dull the edges of uncompromising conviction. No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture; but modern history is not a very satisfactory side-arm in political polemics; it grows less and less so.
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“Sources of Tolerance,” speech, University of Pennsylvania Law School (1930-06)
(Source)
Collected in The Spirit of Liberty (1953).
In the main, I think religion has done a great deal of harm. Largely by sanctifying conservatism and adhesion to ancient habits, and still more by sanctifying intolerance and hatred. The amount of intolerance that has gone into religion, especially in Europe, is quite terrible.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always — eventually — manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve.
History, like perspective, needs distance. Facts that are too abundantly attested cease, in some degree, to be malleable.
[L’histoire a besoin de lointain, comme la perspective. Les faits et les événements trop attestés ont, en quelque sorte, cessé d’être malléables.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 23 “Des Qualités de l’Écrivain et des Compositions Littéraires [On Writers and Literature],” ¶ 119 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 22, ¶ 52]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested, cease, in some sort, to be malleable.
[tr. Attwell (1896), ¶ 356]History, like perspective, has need of distance.
[tr. Auster (1983), 1801]
Were a historian like Tacitus to write a history of the best of our kings, giving an exact account of all the tyrannical acts and abuses of authority, the majority of which lie buried in the profoundest obscurity, there would be few reigns which would not inspire us with the same horror as that of Tiberius.
[Si un historien, tel que Tacite, eût écrit l’histoire de nos meilleurs rois, en faisant un relevé exact de tous les actes tyranniques, de tous les abus d’autorité, dont la plupart sont ensevelis dans l’obscurité la plus profonde, il y a peu de règnes qui ne nous inspirassent la même horreur que celui de Tibère.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 8, ¶ 482 (1795) [tr. Hutchinson (1902)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:If such an historian as Tacitus had written the chronicle of our nobler kings, making an exact statement of all those tyrannical actions and abuses of authority which are now for the most part buried in deep darkness, few of their reigns would inspire less horror than that of Tiberius.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]If a historian such as Tacitus had written the histories of our best kings, with precise accounts of their tyrannical actions, and all their abuses of authority, most of which have been buried in the deepest obscurity, there are few reigns that would not arouse in us the same horror as that of Tiberius.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]If a chronicler such as Tacitus had written the history of our best kings, preparing an exact amount of all tyrannical acts, of all the abuses of authority, of which the majority are concealed by fathomless obscurity, there would be few reigns which would [not?] inspire us with the same horror as that of Tiberius.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]
History. We want to find moral lessons in it, but its only lessons are of politics, military art, etc.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1806 [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
I have been unable to find an analog in other translations, or in the original French.
I conceive that there is nothing which gives a man more pause before taking as absolute what his feelings welcome, and his mind deems plausible, than even the flicker of recollection that something of the sort has been tried before, felt before, disputed before, and for some reason or other has now quite gone into Limbo.
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“Sources of Tolerance,” speech, University of Pennsylvania Law School (1930-06)
(Source)
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.
[L’amour plaît plus que le mariage, par la raison que les romans sont plus amusants que l’histoire.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 6, ¶ 391 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Love gives greater pleasure than marriage for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.
[tr. Hutchinson (1902), "The Cynic's Breviary"]Love is a pleasanter thing than marriage, for the same reason that the Romans are more amusing than History.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more pleasant than history.
[Siniscalchi (1994)]
History may be used to support any conclusion, according to the emphasis of our conscious or unconscious principle of selection.
G. Lowes Dickinson (1862-1932) British political scientist and philosopher [Goldsworthy "Goldie" Lowes Dickinson]
Religion: A Criticism and a Forecast, ch. 1 “Ecclesiasticism” (1906)
(Source)
Since I do not admit that a person without bias exists, I think the best that can be done with a large-scale history is to admit one’s bias and for dissatisfied readers to look for other writers to express an opposite bias. Which bias is nearer to the truth must be left to posterity.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Autobiography, Vol 2: 1914-1944, ch. 6 “America, 1938-1944” (1968)
(Source)
To my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history — if, indeed, such a man exists. I regard it as mere humbug to pretend to a lack of bias.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Autobiography, Vol 2: 1914-1944, ch. 6 “America, 1938-1944” (1968)
(Source)
I don’t think about whether people will remember me or not. I’ve been an okay person. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve taught people a thing or two. That’s what’s important. Sooner or later the public will forget you, the memory of you will fade. What’s important are the individuals you’ve influenced along the way.
Unfortunately, our own colonial history also provided ample reasons for people to be afraid to vest too much power in the national government. There had been bills of attainder here; women had been convicted and sentenced to death as “witches”; Quakers, Baptists, and various Protestant sects had been persecuted from time to time. Roger Williams left Massachusetts to breathe the free air of new Rhode Island. Catholics were barred from holding office in many places. Test oaths were required in some of the colonies to bar any but “Christians” from holding office. In New England Quakers suffered death for their faith. Baptists were sent to jail in Virginia for preaching, which caused Madison, while a very young man, to deplore what he called that “diabolical hell-conceived principle of persecution.”
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
James Madison Lecture, NYU School of Law (1960-02-17)
(Source)
The inaugural Madison lecture. Reprinted as "The Bill of Rights," NYU Law Review, Vol. 35 (Apr 1960). The Madison reference is in a letter to William Bradford (24 Jan 1774).
The truth is often painful and disturbing. Hence if you stick to unalloyed reality, few people will follow you. An American presidential candidate who tells the American public the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about American history has a 100 percent guarantee of losing the elections. The same goes for candidates in all other countries. How many Israelis, Italians or Indians can stomach the unblemished truth about their nations? An uncompromising adherence to the truth is an admirable spiritual practice, but it is not a winning political strategy.
Yuval Noah Harari (b. 1976) Israeli public intellectual, historian, academic, writer [יובל נח הררי]
“Why Fiction Trumps Truth,” New York Times (24 May 2019)
(Source)
It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. I don’t believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood, and this is a thing that even God — who knows all that can be known — seems powerless to change.
Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Book 1, ch. 2 (1904)
(Source)
There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
[Es ist niemals ein Dokument der Kultur, ohne zugleich ein solches der Barbarei zu sein.]
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, essayist.
“Theses on the Philosophy of History [On the Concept of History; Über den Begriff der Geschichte]”, Thesis 7 (1940) [tr. Zohn (1973)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:There has never been a document of culture, which is not simultaneously one of barbarism.
[tr. Redmond (2001)]
If you forget the victims
of yesterday’s sorrow
you could become
a victim of tomorrow.Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
“Fuku,” Almost at the End (1987) [tr. Bouis]
(Source)
First printed, in Russian, in Novyi mir, No. 9 (1985). In "Yevtushenko: A Soviet Poet Turns to Movie Making," New York Times (2 Feb 1986), Yevtushenko translates it himself as:He who forgets the victims of yesterday, may become the victim of tomorrow.
Dear America: You are waking up as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.
Werner Herzog (b. 1942) German film director, screenwriter, author, actor
(Spurious)
Though frequently showing up in social media attributed to Herzog, this was first published by the @wernertwertzog Twitter parody account (23 Aug 2017). The account is operated by William Pannapacker, American literature professor at Hope College, Holland, Michigan.
More information about this quotation:
When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Our children and their children will ask us, “What did you do? What did you say?” For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.
John Lewis (1940-2020) American politician and civil rights leader
Speech, House of Representatives (18 Dec 2019)
(Source)
During the House vote to impeach Donald Trump.
History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it — as with these — life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
The Nature and Study of History, ch. 5 (1965)
(Source)
For a people to be without history, or to be ignorant of its history, is as for a man to be without memory — condemned forever to make the same discoveries that have been made in the past, invent the same techniques, wrestle with the same problems, commit the same errors; and condemned, too, to forfeit the rich pleasures of reflection.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
The Nature and Study of History, ch. 1 (1965)
(Source)
Perhaps the most useful lesson the student of history can learn is to avoid oversimplification, and to accept the notion of multiple causation or to resign himself to the fact that as yet we do not know enough to explain the causes of things. To yearn for a single, and usually simple, explanation of the chaotic materials of the past, to search for a single thread in the most tangled of all skeins, is a sign of immaturity.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
The Nature and the Study of History, ch. 5 (1965)
(Source)
If a quick glance back over world history shows us anything, it shows us that war was one of our most universal joys from our earliest beginnings, savored at every possible opportunity and even some quite incomprehensible ones, like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, whomever he may have been.
Barbara Holland (1933-2010) American author
“War,” Wasn’t the Grass Greener? (1999)
(Source)
First appeared in Smithsonian (Jun 1992).
It is typical for fascist politicians to represent a country’s actual history in conspiratorial terms, as a narrative concocted by liberal elites and cosmopolitans to victimize the people of the true “nation.”
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 1 (2018)
(Source)
History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
The Nature and the Study of History, ch. 5 (1965)
(Source)
Too many wars are fought almost as if by rote. Too many wars are fought out of sloganry, out of battle hymns, out of aged, musty appeals to patriotism that went out with knighthood and moats. Love your country because it is eminently worthy of your affection. Respect it because it deserves your respect. Be loyal to it because it cannot survive without your loyalty. But do not accept the shedding of blood as a natural function or a prescribed way of history, even if history points this up by its repetition. That men die for causes does not necessarily sanctify that cause. And that men are maimed and torn to pieces every fifteen and twenty years does not immortalize or deify the act of war.
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Commencement Address, Binghamton Central High School, Binghamton, New York (28 Jan 1968)
(Source)
We should not be surprised that the Founding Fathers didn’t foresee everything, when we see that the current Fathers hardly ever foresee anything.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Interview (1970-02) by John A. Garraty, “American Nationalism,” Interpreting American History: Conversations with Historians, Part 1, ch. 4 (1970)
(Source)
Excerpted in "Conversations with Historians," American Heritage magazine (1970-02).
This was unwise, but if autocrats always acted wisely they would not furnish history with moral lessons.
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989) American historian and author
A Distant Mirror, ch. 21 “The Fiction Cracks” (1978)
(Source)
On young King Richard II's giving substantial offices and lands to his friend and mentor, the Earl of Oxford, in so doing making an enemy of the Duke of Gloucester.
Memory, as we all know, is fitful and phantasmagoric. History is organized memory, and the organization is all-important.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
The Nature and the Study of History, ch. 1 (1965)
(Source)
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of their luster; judged by the standards of today, there is probably no illustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet the test at all points.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Joan of Arc, “Translator’s Preface” (1860)
(Source)
All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes — all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
The Twilight Zone, 3×09 “Deaths-Head Revisited,” Epilogue (10 Nov 1961)
We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past — Jefferson and Paine, Emerson and Thoreau — while we silence the rebels of the present.
Even here
Worth wins her due, and there are tears to flow,
And human hearts to feel for human woe.[Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi,
Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.]Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 1, l. 461ff (1.461-462) (29-19 BC) [tr. Taylor (1907), st. 61, l. 543ff]
(Source)
Aeneas, on seeing murals of the Trojan Wars in Carthage. (Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:Lo! Priam here, reward here vertue finds;
Troy teares, and humane sufferings pittying minds.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]Ev'n the mute walls relate the warrior's fame,
And Trojan griefs the Tyrians' pity claim.
[tr. Dryden (1697)]Even here praiseworthy deeds meet with due reward: here are tears for misfortunes, and the breasts are touched with human woes.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]Aye, praise waits on worth
E'en in this corner of the earth;
E'en here the tear of pity springs,
And hearts are touched by human things.
[tr. Conington (1866)]Worthy deeds e'en here are praised.
And mortal sufferings move their thoughts and tears.
[tr. Cranch (1872), l. 601ff]Here too is the meed of honour, here mortal estate touches the soul to tears.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]And even here belike deed hath its own reward.
Lo here are tears for piteous things that touch men's hearts anigh.
[tr. Morris (1900)]Virtue's wage is given --
O even here! Here also there be tears
for what men bear, and mortal creatures feel
each other's sorrow.
[tr. Williams (1910)]Here, too, virtue has its due rewards; here, too, there are tears for misfortune and mortal sorrows touch the heart.
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]Look! even here there are rewards for praise,
There are tears for things, and what men suffer touches
The human heart.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]Here too we find virtue somehow rewarded.
Tears in the nature of things, hearts touched by human transience.
[tr. Day Lewis (1952)]Here, too, the honorable finds its due
and there are tears for passing things; here, too,
things mortal touch the mind.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971), l. 654ff]Even so far away
Great valor has due honor; they weep here
For how the world goes, and our life that passes
Touches their hearts.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981), l. 627ff]Here too there is just reward for merit, there are tears for suffering and men's hearts are touched by what man has to bear.
[tr. West (1990)]Here too virtue has its rewards, here too
there are tears for events, and mortal things touch the heart.
[tr. Kline (2002)]Here, too, honor matters;
Here are the tears of the ages, and minds touched
By human suffering.
[tr. Lombardo (2005)]Even here, merit will have its true reward ...
even here, the world is a world of tears
and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.
[tr. Fagles (2006)]Here too, glory has its rewards; the world weeps, and mortal matters move the heart.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]
The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate.
Bernard J. "Bern" Williams (1913-2004) American columnist radio host, aphorist
(Attributed)
This is what the prophets discovered. History is a nightmare. There are more scandals, more acts of corruption, than are dreamed of in philosophy. It would be blasphemous to believe that what we witness is the end of God’s creation. It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final. Others may be satisfied with improvement, the prophets insist upon redemption. The way man acts is a disgrace, and it must not go on forever.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
The Prophets, Vol. 1 (1962)
There really are broad patterns in history, and the search for them is as fascinating as it is productive.
Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
Guns, Germs and Steel, Introduction (1997)
(Source)
Representing the voices of all those whose existence has shaped and formed the world in which we live provides an essential protection against the fascist myth.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 4 (2018)
(Source)
History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed of the broken fragments of antique legends.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day, ch. 47 (1874) [with Charles Dudley Warner]
(Source)
Probably the source of the Twain misquote "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes" (which does not appear prior to 1970).
More discussion of this quotation: History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes – Quote Investigator
Drink, the social glue of the human race. Probably in the beginning we could explain ourselves to our close family members with grunts, muttered syllables, gestures, slaps, and punches. Then when the neighbors started dropping in to help harvest, stomp, stir, and drink the bounty of the land, after we’d softened our natural suspicious hostility with a few stiff ones, we had to think up some more nuanced communications, like words. From there it was a short step to grammar, civil law, religion, history, and “The Whiffenpoof Song.”
Popular art is normally decried as vulgar by the cultivated people of its time; then it loses favour with its original audience as a new generation grows up; then it begins to merge into the softer lighting of “quaint” and cultivated people become interested in it, and finally it begins to take on the archaic dignity of the primitive.
Northrop Frye (1912-1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
Anatomy of Criticism, “Mythical Phase: Symbol as Archetype” (1957)
(Source)
The strategic aim of these hierarchical constructions of history is to displace truth, and the invention of a glorious past includes the erasure of inconvenient realities.
Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, ch. 1 (2018)
(Source)
There are two cinemas: the films we have actually seen and the memories we have of them. The gap between the two widens over the years.
Molly Haskell (b. 1939) American feminist film critic and author.
From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (3rd ed, 2016; orig 1973)
(Source)
History, we know, is apt to repeat herself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Janet’s Repentance, ch. 10 (1859)
(Source)
At the moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially, the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Nineteen Eighty-Four, ch. 3 (1949)
(Source)
History, indeed, is like a picture gallery in which there are few originals and many copies.
[On voit que l’histoire est une galerie de tableaux où il y a peu d’originaux et beaucoup de copies.]
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
The Old Regime and the Revolution [L’Ancien régime et la Révolution], Book 2, ch. 6 (1856) [tr. Gilbert (1955)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals.
[tr. Bonner (1856)]One sees that history is an art gallery where there are few originals and many copies.
[tr. Kahan]History is a gallery of pictures in which there are many copies and few originals.
Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) American writer, feminist, civil rights activist
“Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger,” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)
(Source)
Historians can sometimes explain, or at any rate discuss the immediate causes of some great event. Beyond that they can do little more than arrive at the platitude that every generation is, to some extent, responsible for what happened afterwards. In this way, we can finally reach the preposterous conclusion that the ancient Romans were responsible for the First World War, when they failed to civilize the Germans. This is sometimes called learning from history.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“What Else Indeed?” New York Review of Books (5 Aug 1965)
(Source)
In the popular imagination, the belief persists that history involves little more than reconstruction, a retelling of the past “as it actually was.” But historical understanding involves far more than mere empiricism; it demands a readiness to draw back from the facts to reflect on their significance and their interconnection.
Peter E, Gordon (b. 1966) American intellectual historian
“Why Historical Analogy Matters,” New York Review of Books (7 Jan 2020)
(Source)
The past exudes legend: one can’t make pure clay of time’s mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.
Contumely always falls upon those who break through some custom or convention. Such men, in fact, are called criminals. Everyone who overthrows an existing law is, at the start, regarded as a wicket man. Long afterward, when it is found that this law was bad and so cannot be re-established, the epithet is changed. All history treats almost exclusively of wicked men who, in the course of time, have come to be looked upon as good men. All progress is the result of successful crimes.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
The Dawn [Morgenröte], sec. 20 (1881) [Mencken (1907)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:We have to make good a great deal of the contumely which has fallen on all those who, by their actions, have broken through the conventionality of some custom -- such people generally have been called criminals. Everybody who overthrew the existing moral law has hitherto, at least in the beginning, been considered a wicked man; but when afterwards, as sometimes happened, the old law could not be re-established and had to be abandoned, the epithet was gradually changed. History almost exclusively treats of such wicked men who, in the course of time, have been declared good men.
[tr. Volz (1903)]One has to take back much of the defamation which people have cast upon all those who broke through the spell of a custom by means of a deed -- in general, they are called criminals. Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has hitherto always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen the laws could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed -- history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!
[tr. Hollingdale (1997)]
The nation faces forward. It is made and remade every day. If we believe that the nation resides in the orderly recitations of history given to us by our leaders, then our story is over.
Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author
The Red Prince, “Orange: European Revolutions” (2008)
(Source)
History is not a catalogue but a version of events … a convincing version of events. If an historian is any good, he is convinced by his own version of events and then tries to put this conviction across.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“The view from Twisden Rd.”, interview by Duncan Fallowell, The Spectator (28 May 1983)
(Source)
The past, which as always did not know the future, acted in ways that ask to be imagined before they are condemned. Or even simplified.
All citizens do have a measure of control, at least in democracies where their votes are counted, of how they belong to their nations. Perhaps they will have more confidence in unconventional choices if they see that each nation’s founders were disobedient and unpredictable, men and women of imagination and ambition. The steel of every national monument was once molten.
Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author
The Red Prince, “Orange: European Revolutions” (2008)
(Source)
Like common law, the moral imagination works by precedent and example. We are all equipped with an inherited archive of historical events that serves as the background for everything that occurs. Especially when we are confronted with new events that test the limits of moral comprehension, we call upon what is most familiar in historical memory to regain our sense of moral orientation. We require this archive not only for political judgment, but as the necessary horizon for human experience.
Peter E, Gordon (b. 1966) American intellectual historian
“Why Historical Analogy Matters,” New York Review of Books (7 Jan 2020)
(Source)
Our task as historians is to make past conflicts live again; not to lament the verdict or to wish for a different one. It bewildered me when my old master A. F. Pribram, a very great historian, said in the nineteen-thirties: “It is still not decided whether the Habsburg monarchy could have found a solution for its national problems.” How can we decide about something that did not happen? Heaven knows, we have difficulty enough in deciding what did happen. Events decided that the Habsburgs had not found a solution for their national problems; that is all we know or need to know. Whenever I read the phrase: “whether so-and-so acted rightly must be left for historians to decide,” I close the book; the writer has moved from history to make-believe.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
Trouble Makers: Dissent Over Foreign Policy 1792-1939 (1957)
(Source)
Yet if states were destroyed, local institutions corrupted, and economic incentives directed towards murder, few of us would behave well. There is little reason to think that we are ethically superior to the Europeans of the 1930s and 1940s, or for that matter less vulnerable to the kind of ideas that Hitler so successfully promulgated and realized.
Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author
Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, “Conclusion” (2015)
(Source)
Men write history for the same reason they write poetry, study the properties of numbers, or play football — for the joy of creation; men read history for the same reason they listen to music or watch cricket — for the joy of appreciation.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“The Historian,” Manchester Guardian (5 Aug 1938)
(Source)
Once abandon that firm ground, once plead that history has a “message” or that history has a “social responsibility” (to produce good Marxists or good Imperialists or good citizens) there is no logical escape from the censor and the Index, the OGPU and the Gestapo.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“The Historian,” Manchester Guardian (5 Aug 1938)
(Source)
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
(Attributed)
Now, every time I witness a strong person, I want to know: What darkness did you conquer in your story? Mountains do not rise without earthquakes.
Katherine MacKenett (b. c. 1984) American writer, editor
(Attributed)
Hence it is that, though in every age everybody knows that up to his own time progressive improvement has been taking place, nobody seems to reckon on any improvement during the next generation. We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
“Southey’s Colloquies on Society,” Edinburgh Review (1830)
(Source)
Review of Robert Southey, Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society (1829).
The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
The First World War: A Illustrated History, ch. 1 (1963)
(Source)
All the livid steeds of the Apocalypse have stormed through my life — revolution and famine, inflation and terror, epidemics and emigration. I have seen the great mass ideologies grow and spread before my eyes — Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Bolshevism in Russia, and above all else that arch-plague nationalism which has poisoned the flower of our European culture.
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, biographer
The World of Yesterday [Die Welt von Gestern], Preface (1942)
(Source)
Alternate translation [Sonnenfeld]:All the pale horses of the apocalypse have stormed through my life, revolution, starvation, devaluation of currency and terror, epidemics, emigration; I have seen the great ideologies of the masses grow and spread out before my eyes. Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Bolshevism in Russia, and, above all, that arch-pestilence, nationalism, which poisoned our flourishing European culture.
“Inevitability” is a magic word with which to mesmerize the unwary. Only death is inevitable. Short of that, nothing is inevitable until it happens, and everything is inevitable once it has happened. The historian deals with past events and therefore to him all history is inevitable. But these past events were once in the future, and then they were not inevitable.
No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, ch. 22 (1954)
(Source)
It is tempting to say that a Nazi murderer is beyond the pale of understanding. […] Yet to deny a human being his human character is to render ethics impossible. To yield to this temptation, to find other people inhuman, is to take a step toward, not away from, the Nazi position. To find other people incomprehensible is to abandon the search for understanding, and thus to abandon history.
Timothy Snyder (b. 1969) American historian, author
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, “Conclusion” (2010)
(Source)
In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer — the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“Fiction in History,” Times Literary Supplement (23 Mar 1973)
Reprinted in his Essays in English History (1976).
It is important to remember that events now long in the past were once in the future.
F. W. Maitland (1850-1906) English legal historian and jurist [Frederic William Maitland]
(Attributed)
A favorite saying of A. J. P. Taylor's which he used repeatedly in his writings, attributing it to Maitland. It is sometimes erroneously attributed to Taylor. Variant: "It is very had to remember that events now long in the past were once in the future"
People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.
History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
(Attributed)
In retrospect, though many were guilty, none was innocent. The purpose of political activity is to provide peace and prosperity; and in this every statesman failed, for whatever reason. This is a story without heroes, and perhaps even without villains.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
The Origins of the Second World War, ch. 1 (1961)
(Source)
The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett,” The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1969)
(Source)
In my opinion we learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men’s behaviour. We study it, as we listen to music or read poetry, for pleasure, not for instruction.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett,” The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792–1939 (1969)
(Source)
The truth isn’t easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 5, Sourcery (1988)
Throughout our nervous history, we have constructed pyramidic towers of evil, ofttimes in the name of good. Our greed, fear and lasciviousness have enabled us to murder our poets, who are ourselves, to castigate our priests, who are ourselves. The lists of our subversions of the good stretch from before recorded history to this moment. We drop our eyes at the mention of the bloody, torturous Inquisition. Our shoulders sag at the thoughts of African slaves lying spoon-fashion in the filthy hatches of slave-ships, and the subsequent auction blocks upon which were built great fortunes in our country. We turn our heads in bitter shame at the remembrance of Dachau and the other gas ovens, where millions of ourselves were murdered by millions of ourselves. As soon as we are reminded of our actions, more often than not we spend incredible energy trying to forget what we’ve just been reminded of.
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
“Facing Evil,” Interview by Bill Moyers (1982)
(Source)
It is the victor who writes the history and counts the dead, and to the vanquished in such a struggle there only remains the dull memory of an unnumbered and unwritten sorrow.
William Butler (1838-1910) Irish British Army officer, writer, adventurer
Charles George Gordon, ch. 1 (1891)
(Source)
History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
English History 1914-1945, “Revised Bibliography” (1965)
(Source)
The history is right perhaps, but let us not forget, it was written by the victors.
[L’histoire est juste peut-être, mais qu’on ne l’oublie pas, elle a été écrite par les vainqueurs.]
Alexis Guignard, comte de Saint-Priest (1805-1851) French diplomat and historian
History of Royalty [Histoire de la Royauté] (1842)
(Source)
More books have resulted from somebody’s need to write than from anybody’s need to read.
Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) Anglo-American epigramist, aphorist, cartoonist
Pot-Shots, #3273
(Source)
He [Napoleon III] was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be — a student of history, and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
“Mistaken Lessons from the Past,” The Listener (6 Jun 1963)
(Source)
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. […] The prevailing ideas entertained by [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. […] Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Alexander Stephens (1812-1883) American lawyer, politician, Confederate States Vice-President (1861-65)
“Cornerstone Speech,” Savannah (21 Mar 1861)
(Source)
On the foundation of the government of the Confederate States of America.
Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 1, ch. 1 “Antisemitism as an Outrage to Common Sense” (1951)
(Source)
The primary aim of propaganda is, of course, to influence contemporary opinion, but those who rewrite history do probably believe with part of their minds that they are actually thrusting facts into the past. When one considers the elaborate forgeries that have been committed in order to show that Trotsky did not play a valuable part in the Russian civil war, it is difficult to feel that the people responsible are merely lying. More probably they feel that their own version was what happened in the sight of God, and that one is justified in rearranging the records accordingly.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
(Source)
Such closet politicians never fail to assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions; instead of often ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes, in which they would be much seldomer mistaken. They read and write of kings, heroes, and statesmen, as never doing any thing but upon the deepest principles of sound policy. But those who see and observe kings, heroes and statesmen, discover that they have headaches, indigestions, humours, and passions, just like other people; every one of which, in their turns, determine their wills, in defiance of their reason.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #205 (5 Dec 1749)
(Source)
History is thought of largely in nationalist terms, and such things as the Inquisition, the tortures of the Star Chamber, the exploits of the English buccaneers (Sir Francis Drake, for instance, who was given to sinking Spanish prisoners alive), the Reign of Terror, the heroes of the Mutiny blowing hundreds of Indians from the guns, or Cromwell’s soldiers slashing Irishwomen’s faces with razors, become morally neutral or even meritorious when it is felt that they were done in the “right” cause. If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world; and yet in not one single case were these atrocities — in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna — believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
(Source)
That’s what history is. It’s a conversation between the past and the present.
Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935) American writer and editor
“The Art of Editing No. 4,” The Paris Review (Summer 2019)
(Source)
A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
(Source)
I don’t long for the good old days when there was no servant problem. Back in those days, I’d have been a servant.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
(Attributed)
Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) American dramatist, lyricist, composer
“Finale Ultimo (Camelot Reprise)” [Arthur], Camelot(1960; 1967)
(Source)
Based on T.H. White, The Once and Future King (1958).
Nobody knows what is going to happen because so much depends on an enormous number of variables, on simple hazard. On the other hand if you look at history retrospectively, then, even though it was contingent, you can tell a story that makes sense. […]
Jewish history, for example, in fact had its ups and downs, its, enmities and its friendships, as every history of all people has. The notion that there is one unilinear history is of course false. But if you look at it after the experience of Auschwitz it looks as though all of history — or at least history since the Middle Ages — had no other aim than Auschwitz. […]
This, is the real problem of every philosophy of history how: is it possible that in retrospect it always looks as though it couldn’t have happened otherwise?Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Interview (1973-10) with Roger Errera, Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF)
(Source)
Parts of this interview were turned into an episode of the French TV series "Un certain regard," directed by Jean-Claude Lubtchansky, first broadcast 1974-07-06. This portion of the interview comes at NN:NN in.
This portion of the interview was also published in The New York Review of Books (1978-10-26).
The most important things to remember about backstory are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest. Life stories are best received in bars, and only then an hour or so before closing time, and if you are buying.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2001)
A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living.
Lemuel K. Washburn (1846-1927) American freethinker, writer
Is the Bible Worth Reading and Other Essays (1911)
(Source)
There are inquiries in which scanty evidence is worth using. We may not be able to get certainty, but we can get probability, and half a loaf is better than no bread.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
“Historicism,” The Month (1950-10)
(Source)
Regarding historical inquiry based on incomplete evidence. First reprinted in Christian Reflections (1967).
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.
Any historian of warfare knows it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it has managed to survive at all.
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
The moral of “The Three Bears,” for instance, is “Never break into someone else’s house.” The moral of “Snow White” is “Never eat apples.” The moral of World War One is “Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.”
Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Miserable Mill (2000)
The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will.
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
(Source)
Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964).
To be unacquainted with what has passed in the world, before we came into it ourselves, is to be always children. For what is the age of a single mortal, unless it is connected, by the aid of History, with the times of our ancestors?
[Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur?]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Brutus, ch. 34, sec. 120 (55 BC) [tr. Jones (1776)]
(Source)
The original Latin. Alt. trans.
- "For not to know what happened before one was born, is to be a boy all one s life. For what is the life of a man unless by a recollection of bygone transactions it is united to the times of his predecessors?" [tr. Yonge (1853)]
- "To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a boy. For what is the lifetime of a man, unless it is connected with the lifetime of older men by the memory of earlier events?" [tr. Fox (2007)]
- "What is a generation, if it is not conjoined with the age of our predecessors by the memory of ancient things?" [tr. @sentantiq]
- "Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?"
- "Not to know what happened before you were born is always to be a boy."
- "To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child."
I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver, the “utopian” artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity. Their crafts and traditions may have been dying. Their hostility to the new industrialism may have been backward-looking. Their communitarian ideals may have been fantasies. Their insurrectionary conspiracies may have been foolhardy. But they lived through these times of acute social disturbance, and we did not. Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experience; and, if they were casualties of history, they remain, condemned in their own lives, as casualties.
E. P. Thompson (1924-1993) British historian, writer, activist [Edward Palmer Thompson]
The Making of the English Working Class, Preface (1963)
(Source)
It is impossible to divide the past into distinct, clearly defined periods and prove that one age ended and another began in a particular year, such as 476, or 1453, or 1789. Men do not and cannot change their habits and ways of doing things all at once, no matter what happens.
James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936) American historian and educator
An Introduction to the History of Western Europe, ch. 1 “The Historical Point of View” (1902)
(Source)
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures.
This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-01), “The Prevention of Literature,” Polemic Magazine
(Source)
Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers.
Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004) American historian, professor, attorney, writer
(Attributed)
Occasionally quoted with "... and hoping for the best" added to the end.
One would expect people to remember the past and to imagine the future. But in fact, when discoursing or writing about history, they imagine it in terms of their own experience, and when trying to gauge the future they cite supposed analogies from the past: till, by a double process of repetition, they imagine the past and remember the future.
Lewis B. Namier (1888-1960) Polish-British historian
“Symmetry and Repetition” (1941), Conflicts: Studies in Contemporary History (1942)
The position which believers and unbelievers occupy with regard to their various forms of faith is very much the same all over the world. The difficulties which trouble us, have troubled the hearts and minds of men as far back as we can trace the beginnings of religious life. The great problems touching the relation of the Finite to the Infinite, of the human mind as the recipient, and of the Divine Spirit as the source of truth, are old problems indeed; and while watching their appearance in different countries, and their treatment under varying circumstances, we shall be able, I believe, to profit ourselves, both by the errors which others committed before us, and by the truth which they discovered. We shall know the rocks that threaten every religion in this changing and shifting world of ours, and having watched many a storm of religious controversy and many a shipwreck in distant seas, we shall face with greater calmness and prudence the troubled waters at home.
Max Müller (1823-1900) German-British philologist, Orientalist, religious studies founder
Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. 1, Preface (1866)
(Source)
I have regarded you, not as a novelist, but as an historian; for it is my considered opinion, unshaken at 85, that records of fact are not history. They are only annals, which cannot become historical until the artist-poet-philosopher rescues them from the unintelligible chaos of their actual occurrence and arranges them in works of art.
When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to your novels. They object that the people in your books never existed; that their deeds were never done and their sayings never uttered. I assure them that they were, except that Upton Sinclair individualized and expressed them better than they could have done, and arranged their experiences, which as they actually occurred were as unintelligible as pied type, in significant and intelligible order.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright and critic
Letter to Upton Sinclair (12 Dec 1941)
That men should pray and fight for their own freedom, and yet keep others in slavery, is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and, perhaps, impious part, but the history of mankind is filled with instances of human improprieties.
John Jay (1745-1829) American statesman, diplomat, abolitionist, politician, Chief Justice (1789-1795)
Letter to Rev. Doctor Price (27 Sep 1785)
(Source)
The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.
James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter to Professor Demmon (16 Dec 1871)
(Source)
Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly.
[Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Brutus, sec. 42 (46 BC)
Alt. trans.:
- "Orators are indeed permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly."
- "For it is the privilege of rhetoricians to exceed the truth of history, that they may have an opportunity of embellishing the fate of their heroes." [tr. Jones (1776)]
- "Fabrication's certainly allowed when practitioners of rhetoric write history, to frame a point more cleverly." [tr. Kaster (2020)]
After titanic studies he was satisfied that a thorough knowledge of the past could lead a profound scholar to predict the future course of history with greater accuracy, provided that it did not turn out quite differently.
Aubrey Menen (1912-1989) British writer, novelist, satirist, theatre critic
The Ramayana (1954)
(Source)
As a novelist, I cannot occupy myself with “characters,” or at any rate central ones, who lack panache, in one or another sense, who would be incapable of a major action or a major passion, or who have not a touch of the ambiguity, the ultimate unaccountability, the enlarging mistiness of persons “in history.” History, as more austerely I now know it, is not romantic. But I am.
MORDEN: Think about it, Captain. Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond description. But look at what came out of all that. We’ve gone to the stars. Split the atom. Written sonnets. We would never have evolved this far if we hadn’t been at each other’s throats, evolving our way up inch by inch.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 3×22 “Z’Ha’Dum” (28 Oct 1996)
Such is the unity of all history that any one who endeavors to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless web.
F. W. Maitland (1850-1906) English legal historian and jurist [Frederic William Maitland]
“A Prologue to a History of English Law,” Law Quarterly Review (Jan 1898)
(Source)
Prologue to the 2nd ed. of his and Pollock's History of English Law (1898). Frequently mis-paraphrased, "The law is a seamless web."
It is not the least of a martyr’s scourges to be canonized by the persons who burned him.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, ch. 2 (1955)
(Source)
There are very few historical characters who are alive enough to be hated.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“St. Paul” (1914), Outspoken Essays: First Series (1914)
(Source)
The bearers of the myth of every decade seem to carry in their hands the ax and the spade to execute and inter the myth of the previous one.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, Prelude (1955)
(Source)
From history’s examples we conclude,
And modern instances teach us the same:
Good follows Evil, Evil follows Good,
Shame ends in glory, glory ends in shame.
Thus it is evident that no man should
Put trust in victories or wealth or fame,
Nor yet despair if Fortune is adverse:
She turns her wheel for better, as for worse.Si vede per gli esempi di che piene
Sono l’antiche e le moderne istorie,
Che ‘l ben va dietro al male, e ‘l male al bene,
E fin son l’un de l’altro e biasmi e glorie;
E che fidarsi a l’uom non si conviene
In suo tesor, suo regno e sue vittorie,
Né disperarsi per Fortuna avversa,
Che sempre la sua ruota in giro versa.Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) Italian poet
Orlando Furioso, Canto 45, st. 4 (1532) [tr. Reynolds (1973)]
Alt. trans. [Rose (1831)]:'Tis plain to sight, through instances that fill
The page of ancient and of modern story,
That ill succeeds to good, and good to ill;
That glory ends in shame, and shame in glory;
And that man should not trust, deluded still,
In riches, realm, or field of battle, gory
With hostile blood, nor yet despair, for spurns
Of Fortune; since her wheel for ever turns.
Every great work of art has two faces: one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
Daniel Barenboim (b. 1942) Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor
Quoted in the International Herald Tribune (20 Jan 1989)
The above is sometimes cited to his collaborative dialog with Edward Said, Parallels and Paradoxes (2002), but the passage there is slightly different: "I think that every great work of art has two faces: one toward its own time and one toward eternity."
Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1860), “Considerations by the Way,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 7
(Source)
Based on a course of lectures by that name first delivered in Pittsburg (1851-03).
Human blunders, however, usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
The Origins of the Second World War, ch. 10 “The War of Nerves” (1961)
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 1, “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 12 (1905-1906)
(Source)
Often given as "Those who do not remember the past ...." Quoted at the Auschwitz Holocaust Museum, via Polish, as: "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again."
Often misattributed to Winston Churchill, who paraphrased it in a Commons speech in 1948: "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Montaigne; or, The Skeptic,” Representative Men, Lecture 4 (1850)
(Source)
Prudent men are in the habit of saying — and not by chance or without basis — that he who wishes to see what is to come should observe what has already happened, because all the affairs of the world, in every age, have their individual counterparts in ancient times. The reason for this is that since they are carried on by men, who have and always have had the same passions, of necessity the same results appear.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 43 (1517) [tr. Gilbert (1958)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "The wise are wont to say, and not without reason or at random, that he who would forecast what is about to happen should look to what has been; since all human events, whether present or to come, have their exact counterpart in the past. And this, because these events are brought about by men, whose passions and dispositions remaining in all ages the same naturally give rise to the same effects." [tr. Thomson]
Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.
Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 3 “Government and Politics” (1989)
(Source)
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H. G. Wells (1866-1946) British writer [Herbert George Wells]
The Outline of History, Vol. 2, ch. 41, sec. 4 (1921)
(Source)
Also attributed to Wells: "Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have."
The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. Both assumptions are false: both of them must be accepted as true if we are to go on eating and working and loving, and are to keep open a few breathing-holes for the human spirit. No millennium seems likely to descend upon humanity; no better and stronger League of Nations will be instituted; no form of Christianity and no alternative to Christianity will bring peace to the world or integrity to the individual; no “change of heart” will occur. And yet we need not despair, indeed, we cannot despair; the evidence of history shows us that men have always insisted on behaving creatively under the shadow of the sword; that they have done their artistic and scientific and domestic stuff for the sake of doing it, and that we had better follow their example under the shadow of the aeroplanes.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
(Source)
The salvation of America and of the human race depends on the next election, if we believe the newspapers. But so it was last year, and so it was the year before, and our fathers believed the same thing forty years ago.
Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers’ Manual, Part 3, ch. 1 “Words as Separate Units of Consciousness” (1988)
(Source)
Americans’ lack of passion for history is well known. History may not quite be bunk, as Henry Ford suggested, but there’s no denying that, as a people, we sustain a passionate concentration on the present and the future. Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look — historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.
Larry McMurtry (b. 1936) American novelist, essayist, bookseller, screenwriter
Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846–1890 (2005)
(Source)
People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives any more.
They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?Andrew R. Moxon (contemp.) American writer, critic [a.k.a. Julius Goat]
Essay (2017-01-16), “Sky,” Blogspot
(Source)
Frequently mis-attributed to Twitter, where Moxxon also posted under his @JuliusGoat handle. The original Julius Goat Blogspot site is no longer online.
We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse: we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard. More than that, we speak volumes — our language is the language of everything we have not read. Shakespeare and the Authorised Version surface in supermarkets, on buses, chatter on radio and television. I find this miraculous. I never cease to wonder at it. That words are more durable than anything, that they blow with the wind, hibernate and reawaken, shelter parasitic on the most unlikely hosts, survive and survive and survive.
HENRY: This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d, —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs’d, they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 58ff (4.3.58-69) (1599)
(Source)
