Our ignorance of history makes us calumniate our own time. We have always been like this. Some calm years have deceived us. That is all. I too believed in the softening of manners. We must erase this error and esteem ourselves no more than people esteemed themselves in the time of Pericles or Shakespeare, atrocious epochs in which fine things were done.
[On a toujours été comme ça. Quelques années de calme nous ont trompés. Voilà tout. Moi aussi, je croyais à l’adoucissement des mœurs. Il faut rayer cette erreur et ne pas s’estimer plus qu’on ne s’estimait du temps de Péricles ou de Shakespeare, époques atroces où on a fait de belles choses.]
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French writer, novelist
Letter to George Sand (8 Sep 1871) [tr. Tarver]
(Source)
Original French.
Alternate translation: "Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times."
Quotations about:
history
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
Letter (1887-04-05) to Mandell Creighton
(Source)
Often paraphrased, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
There is an alternate, probably spurious version of this quote, for which I have been unable to find an actual citation (except where it is mis-cited to this letter to Bp. Creighton): "And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." As the word "gangster" has only been traced back to 1886, and that in the US, its use by Acton (esp. in a modern sense) seems unlikely.
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry, and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.
William James (Will) Durant (1885-1981) American historian, teacher, philosopher
Quoted in Jim Hicks, “Spry Old Team Does It Again,” Life (18 Oct 1963)
(Source)
Durant says this is what he came up with when asked to sum up civilization in a half-hour ("I did it in less than a minute, this way").
This source is Durant recounting the passage in a Life magazine interview, which is often mis-cited as the origin. The quote is also sometimes vaguely attributed to his and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization, their 11-volume work (1935-75) (the Life article was on the publication of Vol. 8, The Age of Louis XIV (1963)), but I cannot find it in any of the volumes to that date.
An historian is an unsuccessful novelist.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 7, § 21 (1916)
(Source)
Variants:
HISTORIAN. An unsuccessful novelist.
[A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)]
Historian - An unsuccessful novelist.
[Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949)]
If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death? The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
(Source)
Sometimes paraphrased, "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
“Table Talk,” Drift-Wood (1857)
(Source)
More discussion of this quotation here: If We Could Read the Secret History of Our Enemies, We Should Find in Each Man’s Life Sorrow and Suffering Enough To Disarm All Hostility – Quote Investigator.
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power;
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small;
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs;
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.Charles Beard (1874-1948) American historian
Summary of human history, in reply to George S. Counts
Every observation of history inspires a confidence that we shall not go far wrong; that things will mend.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Young American,” lecture, Mercantile Library Association, Boston (1844-02-07)
(Source)
Everybody knows that the first law of history is not daring to say anything false; that the second is daring to say everything that is true; that there should be no suggestion of partiality, none of animosity when you write.
[Nam quis nescit primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat? Deinde ne quid veri non audeat? Ne quae suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo? Ne quae simultatis?]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
De Oratore [On the Orator, On Oratory], Book 2, ch. 15 (2.15) / sec. 62 (55 BC) [tr. May/Wisse (2001)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
For, is there a Man ignorant, that the first Rule of History is, that an Historian shall not dare to advance a Falsity; the next, that there is no Truth but what he shall dare to tell? That in Writing, he shall be free of all Prepossession; of all Pique?
[tr. Guthrie (1755)]
For, is there a man ignorant that the first rule of history is that an historian shall not dare to advance a falsehood; the next, that there no truth but what he shall dare to tell? That the writer should be actuated neither by favour, or by prejudice?
[Source (1808)]
For who is ignorant that it is the first law in writing history, that the historian must not dare to tell any falsehood, and the next, that he must be bold enough to tell the whole truth? Also, that there must be no suspicion of partiality in his writings, or of personal animosity?
[tr. Watson (1860)]
Who need be informed that the first law of history is, to have the honesty to state no falsehood, the next, the courage to suppress no truth, and to avoid all suspicion of undue bias or personal animosity?
[tr. Calvert (1870)]
Who does not recognise that the first law of history is that we shall never dare to say what is false; the second that we shall never fear to say what is true; that everything we write shall be free from any suspicion of favoritism or flattery?
[ed. Harbottle (1906)]
For who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth ? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?
[tr. Sutton/Rackham (1940)]
The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice.
[Bartlett's]
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
William James (Will) Durant (1885-1981) American historian, teacher, philosopher
NY World-Telegram & Sun (6 Jun 1958)
But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. […] Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, then any that stand remembred in the known account of time?
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 5 (1658)
(Source)
World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“The Twelve Caesars,” United States (1993)