We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.
History Quotes
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
Sometimes you can remember people by remembering what they saw. When people die they take so much with them, so many details already lost in the fog of senescence. I’m not just talking about family stories, but commonplace facts of daily life – the brand name of an obscure chewing gum, the sound a parking […]
The men who make history have not time to write it.
All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one in which Winston worked, consisted simply of […]
Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.
Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
The present state of things is the consequence of the former, and it is natural to enquire what were the sources of the good that we enjoy, or the evil that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent: if we are intrusted with the care […]
We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some people never notice. Accidents interfere. You are not present at episodes. You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom […]
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce.
