A person who does not know his past cannot shape his future. So everyone must learn history. You can’t get out of that pool anyway when you start learning history. Famous history quotes on life with lessons learned will pull out your investigative spirit and draws it towards itself.
If you’re searching for top quotation that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of time pass quotes, powerful quotes about education, and best peace quotes.
History Quotes
History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us. Johan Huizinga
I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations. Queen Elizabeth II
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Maya Angelou
Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. Nelson Mandela
The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history? Katharine Anthony
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. Mahatma Gandhi
We are not makers of history. We are made by history. Martin Luther King
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. Desmond Tutu
No volume of history is insignificant, even the worst chapters. Especially the worst chapters. Terri Guillemets
History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside. John F. Kennedy
History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity. Dexter Perkins
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds. Abraham Lincoln
If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. Michael Crichton
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. Robert Kennedy
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. Robert A. Heinlein
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little. Franklin D. Roosevelt
You don’t change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall. Jawaharlal Nehru
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. Aldous Huxley
If you think you have it tough, read history books. Bill Maher
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. John Adams
More and more, I tend to read history. I often find it more up to date than the daily newspapers. Joe Murray
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools. Ambrose Bierce
The writing of histories as Goethe once noted is one way of getting rid of the weight of the past. The writing of history liberates us from history. Benedetto Croce
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read President Can’t Swim. Lyndon B. Johnson
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. Abraham Lincoln
Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind. Neil Armstrong They died hard
History is a mighty drama, enacted upon the theatre of times, with suns for lamps and eternity for a background. Thomas Carlyle
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry
History can bring luck: this is what we can call optimism. Stephane Hessel
Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast. Joan of Arc
History is a symphony of echoes heard and unheard. It is a poem with events as verses. Charles Angoff
Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. George S. Patton
To study history means submitting yourself to chaos, but nevertheless retaining your faith in order and meaning. Herman Hesse
I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments. Friedrich August von Hayek
History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside. John F. Kennedy
A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil. Grover Cleveland
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are. David McCullough
What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren’t supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown watch the raindrops coming down the window pane? Jackie Kennedy
He who puts out his hand to stop the wheel of history will have his fingers crushed. Lech Walesa
They died hard, those savage men like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them. Douglas MacArthur
History is the action and reaction of these two, nature and thought two boys pushing each other on the curbstone of the pavement. Ralph Waldo Emerson
We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn’t think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre. Dick Gregory
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies. Alexis de Tocqueville
The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost. M. Scott Peck
The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French. Charles de Gaulle
History is the story of events, with praise or blame. Cotton Mather
The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war. George W. Bush
History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages. Barry Goldwater
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. Marcus Garvey
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds. William James
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul. Lord Acton
On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born. Alfred de Vigny
History is a relay of revolutions. Saul Alinsky
France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they’ve forgotten all about it. I’m afraid that the American culture is a disaster. Johnny Depp
People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them. James Baldwin
Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world. James K. Polk
History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought. Etienne Gilson
Pearl Harbor caused our Nation to wholeheartedly commit to winning World War II, changing the course of our Nation’s history and the world’s future. Joe Baca
History never looks like history when you are living through it. John W. Gardner
Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote! Susan B. Anthony
Human history, in essence, is the history of ideas. H. G. Wells
Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself. William Butler Yeats
Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it. Oscar Wilde
Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages. Barry Goldwater
No other discipline has its portals so wide open to the general public as history. Johan Huizinga
France is delighted at this new opportunity to show the world that when one has the will one can succeed in joining peoples who have been brought close by history. Francois Mitterrand
Fear not for the future, weep not for the past. Percy Bysshe Shelley
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. Abraham Lincoln
Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort. Mason Cooley
We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world. Tony Blair
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Mark Twain
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. Napoleon Bonaparte
I can’t change history, I don’t want to change history. I can only change the future. I’m working on that. Boris Becker
