"History is a myth that men agree to believe."
History quotes
History
1.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to History
Browse quotes that often appear alongside history — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
History quotes (page 27 of 82)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We want to go in for suffering, and there may be torture. If we put the women in front the Government may hesitate to inflict on us all the penalty that they might otherwise inflict."
"The only form of fiction in which real characters do not seem out of place is history. In novels they are detestable."
"If the art is concealed, it succeeds."
"A work should convey its entire meaning by itself, imposing it on the spectator even before he knows what the subject is."
"Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical."
"Nature in no case cometh short of art, for the arts are copiers of natural forms."
"Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth."
"We had to do what we had to do - Britain is great again."
"James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them."
"History, we know, is apt to repeat itself."
"Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history."
"History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe."
"We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom."
"Happy people have no history."
"The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words--that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible."
"History has to move in a certain direction, even if it has to be pushed that way by neurotics."
"England will still be England, an everlasting animal, stretching into the future and the past and like all living things having the power to change out of all recognition and yet remain the same."
"History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion."
"History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory."