History

Every true history must force us to remember that the past was once as real as the present and as uncertain as the future. – George Macaulay Trevelyan, Clio, A Muse

People tend to forget that the word “history” contains the word “story”. – Ken Burns

The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened. – Peter Berger

History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions. – Ted Koppel

Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? – Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

As Geography without History seemeth a carkasse without motion; so History without Geography wandreth as a Vagrant without a certaine habitation. – John Smith

The historian reports to us, not events themselves, but the impressions they have made on him. – Heinrich von Sybel

Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural as an oak tree. It comes out of the past; its foundations are laid far back. – Wendell Phillips, Address, Anti-Slavery Society, 1852

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation. – John Acton

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong. – John Acton

History studies not just facts and institutions, its real subject is the human spirit. – Fustel de Coulange, La CitÃ© antique, 1864

Real history is a candid shot. The history of textbooks poses for its pictures. – Terri Guillemets

All other forms of history – economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology – seem to me history with the history left out. – A.J.P. Taylor

History is principally the inaccurate narration of events which ought not to have happened. – Earnest Albert Hooten, The Twilight of Man

[T]hat is the triumph of history – truth absolute is not at hand; the original with which to match the copy does not exist. – Jacques Barzun, Clio and the Doctors

Without philosophy, history seems to me to be deaf and dumb. – Ferdinand Baur, Symbolik und Mythologic

The past remains integral to us all, individually and collectively. We must concede the ancients their place, as I have argued. But their place is not simply back there in a separate and foreign country; it is assimilated in ourselves, and resurrected into an ever-changing present. – David Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country

Unlike poetry and music, the art of history is cumulative. – John Clive, Not By Fact Alone

In studying history we are finding out about ourselves, and in the last resort the natural sciences and even mathematics have the same final end. – Vivian Hunter Galbraith, An Introduction to the Study of History

History is the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another. – Jacob Burckhardt