History quotes
1.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside history — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality."
"History never repeats itself. Man always does."
"You and I were long friends: you are now my enemy, and I am yours."
"One never really knows how much one has been touched by a place until one has left it."
"Language is an archaeological vehicle... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history."
"The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity."
"The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation."
"History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable."
"every idiot who goes about with a 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."
"History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below."
"No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."
"History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it."
"History -- its what those bitter old men write."
"The thirst for equality can express itself either as a desire to draw everyone down to one's level, or to raise oneself and everyone else up."
"The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."
"There never was a time in our history when ignorance of current affairs could be so dangerous."
"Study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft."
"History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead."
"Being offended is a natural consequence of leaving the house."
