Sometimes words can’t do justice, but they can come pretty close. Here’s our second history quotes “round up”—let us know if you have any favorites that we missed!
1. “History is not a work of philosophy, it is a painting; it is necessary to combine narration with the representation of the subject, that is, it is necessary simultaneously to design and to paint; it is necessary to give to men the language and the sentiments of their times, not to regard the past in the light of our own opinion.”
—François-René de Chateaubriand
2. “[A]ny fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.”
—Oscar Wilde
3. “Without passion there might be no errors, but without passion there would certainly be no history.”
—C. V. Wedgwood
4. “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.”
—B. C. Forbes
5. “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”
—Carter G. Woodson
6. “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
7. “History is written by the victors.”
—Winston Churchill
8. “Life is not simple, and therefore history, which is past life, is not simple.”
—David Shannon
9. “If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.”
—Aristotle
10. “History must be written of, by and for the survivors.”
—Anonymous
11. “Inertia is the first law of history, as it is of physics.”
—Morris R. Cohen
12. “The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
—Mark Twain
13. “The supreme purpose of history is a better world.”
—Herbert Hoover
14. “History has become more important than ever because of the unprecedented ability of the historical sciences to take in man’s life on earth as a whole.”
—Alfred Kazin
15. “History is a great deal closer to poetry than is generally realised: in truth, I think, it is in essence the same.”
—A. L. Rowse
16. “To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not, have taken care to appear such in their writings.”
—Lord Bolingbroke
17. “This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.”
—Tacitus
18. “If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.”
—Lord Acton
19. “[History] may be called, more generally still, the Message, verbal or written, which all Mankind delivers to everyman.”
—Thomas Carlyle
20. “History teaches everything, including the future.”
—Alphonse de Lamartine
