With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present. — Kenneth M. Stampp
History must speak for itself. A historian is content if he has been able to shed more light. — William L. Shirer
The function off the historian is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as the key to the understanding of the present. — Edward Hallett Carr
[T]he historian must serve two masters, the past and the present. — Fritz Stern
The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies. — Marc Bloch
The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context — Edward Hallett Carr
What distinguishes the historian from the collector of historical facts is generalization. — Edward Hallett Carr
Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time. — Herodotus
History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
When a historian enters into metaphysics he has gone to a far country from whose bourne he will never return a historian. — Shailer Mathews
History is on every occasion the record of that which one age finds worthy of note in another. — Jacob Burckhardt
I'm not an aviation historian, I'm not an Air Force aficionado, and I'm definitely not a ufologist. — Annie Jacobsen
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty. — Lord Acton
Woman is a miracle of divine contradictions. — Jules Michelet
Battles are sometimes won by generals; wars are nearly always won by sergeants and privates. — F. E. Adcock
Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. — African Proverbs
Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat the eleventh grade. — James W. Loewen
Souls reconstructed with faith transform agony into peace. — Aberjhani
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited. — Lord Acton
Historians are gossips who tease the dead — Voltaire
Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up. — Ronald Wright
Black History Quotes
A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man. — Malcolm X
you must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. — Rosa Parks
If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander. — Mary Mcleod Bethune
The world is a severe schoolmaster, for its frowns are less dangerous than its smiles and flatteries, and it is a difficult task to keep in the path of wisdom. — Phillis Wheatley
Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionarys life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime. — Angela Davis
I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. — Ida B. Wells
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James A. Baldwin
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. — Harriet Tubman
America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet. — Dick Gregory
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down. — Thurgood Marshall
There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. — Chinua Achebe
Ancient Egypt was a Negro Civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt. — Cheikh Anta Diop
When you compare yourself with others in matters of wealth, position, and health, you should look at people less favoured than yourself. When you compare yourself with others in matters of religion, knowledge and virtue, look at people who are better than yourself. — Ibn Hazm
History should not be left to the historians. Rather, be like Churchill. Make history, and then write it. — Ferdinand Marcos
We must be very careful not to assign this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations — Winston Churchill
I learned more from my mother than from all the art historians and curators who have informed me about technical aspects of art history and art appreciation over the years. — David Rockefeller
The new line is that, yes, totally out-of-control migration is with us forever; yes, it is leading to social breakdown and chaos in Europe; but if we adopt ‘new ideas’ everything is going to be just fine. Historians will look back and laugh, won’t they? — Philip Pilkington
We should show Chernobyl to the world: scientists, environmental specialists, historians and tourists. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it. — E. J. Hobsbawm
The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians. — Margaret Thatcher
We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history. — H. G. Wells
Still, Lenin personally also forced through the deportation in fall 1922 of theologians, linguists, historians, mathematicians, and other intellectuals on two chartered German ships, dubbed the Philosophers’ Steamers. GPU notes on them recorded: “knows a foreign language,” “uses irony.” — Stephen Kotkin
In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references! — Bart D. Ehrman
Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes. — Robert the Bruce
In his book Modern Times, the historian Paul Johnson referred to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini as the three devils of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Nietzshean dogma influenced each of them. — Ravi Zacharias
No, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers. — Heinrich Schliemann
In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors. — Miriam Makeba
Since history has no properly scientific value, its only purpose is educative. And if historians neglect to educate the public, if they fail to interest it intelligently in the past, then all their historical learning is valueless except in so far as it educates themselves. — G. M. Trevelyan
If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, "There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The English historian Henry Thomas Buckle famously remarked: 'Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest, by their preference for the discussion of ideas.' — Gad Saad
The fifth century BC historian Herodotus called Egypt ‘the gift of the Nile’. The Egyptians themselves went a lot further. They claimed that their sacred river had its source among the stars. — Robert Bauval
I have learned more [from Balzac] than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians put together. — Friedrich Engels
Placed as the fossils are in their several tiers of burial-places the one over the other; we have in them true witnesses of successive existences, whilst the historian of man is constantly at fault as to dates and even the sequence of events, to say nothing of the contradicting statements which he is forced to reconcile. — Roderick Murchison
History consists of a corpus ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish in the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him. — Edward Hallett Carr
As with Rome, the fall of Constantinople happened only after its rulers had started devaluing the currency, a process that historians believe began in the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos. Along with monetary decline came the fiscal, military, cultural, and spiritual decline of the Empire, as it trudged on with increasing crises until it was overtaken by the Ottomans in 1453. — Saifedean Ammous
Fortunately, historians are now beginning to recognise the historic role of Islam as a liberating force for peoples oppressed by the burdens of unjust social systems. — Aly Khan
Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects. — Herodotus
All history is an attempt to find pattern and meaning in a section of human experience, and every historian worthy of the name raises questions about man's ultimate destiny and the meaning of all history to which, as history, he can provide no answers. The answers belong to the realm of theology. — G. B. Caird
I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this. — Bart D. Ehrman
The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
I realized how valuable the art and practice of writing letters are, and how important it is to remind people of what a treasure letters--handwritten letters--can be. In our throwaway era of quick phone calls, faxes, and email, it's all to easy never to find the time to write letters. That's a great pity--for historians and the rest of us. — Nancy Reagan
In Conclusion
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