8/13/2019 Aphorisms What is History

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WHAT IS HISTORY?

History is the lie commonly agreed upon. (Voltaire) Who controls the past controls the future: who

controls the present controls the past. (GeorgeOrwell)

History is more or less bunk. (Henry ord) History: !n account" mostly false" of e#ents" mostly

unimportant" which are brought about by rulers"

mostly kna#es" and soldiers" mostly fools. (!mbrose$ierce) History could be di#ided into e#ents which do not

matter and e#ents which probably ne#er occurred.(W.%. &nge)

History is only a confused heap of facts. (G.'.hesterton)

History is hilosophy teaching by e*amples.(+hucydides)

,ot to know what has been transacted in formertimes is to continue always a child. ( icero)

+he first lesson of history is the good of e#il. (%alphWaldo -merson)

History does not repeat itself e*cept in the minds ofthose who do not know history. ('ahlil Gibran)

+hose who cannot remember the past arecondemned to repeat it. ( antayana)

History is the intellectual form in which aci#ili/ation renders account to itself of its past.(0ohann Hui/inga)

! nation which does not know what it wasyesterday" does not know what it is today" nor whatit is trying to do. (Woodrow Wilson)

+o study history means submitting to chaos andne#ertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. &t

is a #ery serious task" ... and possibly a tragic one.(Hermann Hesse) History is a people1s memory" and without memory

man is demoted to the lower animals. (2alcolm 3) eoples and go#ernments ha#e ne#er learned

anything from history" or acted on principlesdeducible from it. (G.W. . Hegel)

History doesn1t repeat itself 4 at best it sometimesrhymes. (2ark +wain)

History teaches us that men and nations beha#ewisely once they ha#e e*hausted all otheralternati#es. (!bba -ban)

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own

times. eople ha#e always been like this. (Gusta#elaubert)

5ni#ersal history" the history of what man hasaccomplished in this world" is at bottom the historyof the Great 2en who ha#e worked here. (+homas

arlyle) &f a man could say nothing against a character but

what he can pro#e" history could not be written.( amuel 0ohnson)

History is the 6know thyself6 of humanity 44 theself4consciousness of mankind. (7roysen)

+he history of all hitherto e*isting society is thehistory of class struggles. ('arl 2ar*)

History is a science" no less and no more. (0.$.$ury)

History is past politics and politics presenthistory. (-.!. reeman)

We teach history only when it can be made into

an entertaining anecdote" a procedure which isabout as sound as lea#ing the teaching of se*ualhygiene to a commercial tra#eler. (!ubrey2aran)

iction is history" human history" or it isnothing. (0oseph onrad)

History" real solemn history" & cannot beinterested in. . . .+he 8uarrels of popes andkings" with wars and pestilences in e#ery page9the men all so good for nothing" and hardly anywomen at all. (0ane !usten)

+he historian can learn much from the no#elist.( amuel -liot 2orison)

!nybody can make history9 only a great mancan write it. (Oscar Wilde)

History is simply a piece of paper co#ered with print9 the main thing is still to make history" notto write it. (Otto #on $ismarck)

,o single man makes history. History cannot beseen ust as one cannot see grass growing.($oris asternak)

Historical knowledge is not a #ariety ofknowledge" but it is knowledge itself9 it is theform which completely fills and e*hausts thefield of knowing. ($enedetto roce)

Genuine historical knowledge re8uires nobilityof character" a profound understanding ofhuman e*istence 44 not detachment andob ecti#ity. ( riedrich ,iet/sche)

&t has been said that although God cannot alterthe past" historians can. &t is perhaps becausethey can be useful to him in this respect that hetolerates their e*istence. ( amuel $utler)

&t is not the literal past" the 6facts6 of history"that shape us" but images of the past embodiedin language. ($rian riel)

History and myth are two aspects of a kind ofgrand pattern in human destiny: history is themass of obser#able or recorded fact" but myth isthe abstract or essence of it. (%obertson 7a#ies)

!ll statements about the past can be consideredas #ery crude ways of e*pressing possible"hypothetical udgments about futuree*periences. ( ardon +illinghast)

Historical knowledge is the knowledge of whatmind has done in the past" and at the same timeit is the redoing of this" the perpetuation of pastacts in the present. (%.G. ollingwood)

,othing capable of being memori/ed is history.(%.G. ollingwood)

8/13/2019 Aphorisms What is History

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History... is a tool we use each generation or eachyear to help get along in the world" discarding theold tool for a new one whene#er necessary. ( aul '.

onkin) History is a damn dim candle o#er a damn dark

abyss. (W. . Holt)