Best history & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: Historical Essays and Studies: Great Event

“History -- its what those bitter old men write.”

“Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.”

Source: The Impact of Science On Society

“Richmond has fallen - and I have no heart to write about it... They are too many for us. Everything lost in Richmond, even our archives. Blue-black is our horizon.”

Writing Heart War Lost Black History Blue Fallen Civil War Horizon American Civil War Archives Richmond

Book:Mary Chesnut's Diary

Source: Mary Chesnut's Diary

“The art of writing has for backbone some fierce attachment to an idea.”

Writing Art Ideas Philosophy History Attachment Fierce Backbone Art Of Writing

Book:Selected essays

Source: Selected essays

“Sin writes histories, goodness is silent. [Ger., Das Uebel macht eine Geschichte und das Gute keine.]”

Writing Sin History Goodness Silent

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation.”

Writing History Generations Contemporary Historian

Book:The Mysterious Mr Quin

Source: The Mysterious Mr Quin

“If every nation gets the government it deserves, every generation writes the history which corresponds with its view of the world.”

Ifs World Writing Government Nations Views History Generations Deserve World History

Book:Between Myth and Morning: Women Awakening

Source: Between Myth and Morning: Women Awakening

“History is not truth versus falsehoods, but a mixture of both, a mélange of tendencies, reactions, dreams, errors, and power plays. What's important is what we make of it; its moral use. By writing history, we can widen readers' thinking and deepen their sympathies in every direction. Perhaps history should show us not how to control the world, but how to enlarge, deepen, and discipline ourselves.”

Thinking World Should Writing Important Play Use Shows Dream Moral History Reader Discipline Errors Reactions Tendencies Falsehood Versus Mixtures What's Important Writing History Power Play

Book:Heart Mountain

Source: Heart Mountain

“It is the winners who write history - their way.”

Way Writing History Winner

Book:The Gnostic Gospels

Source: The Gnostic Gospels

“As an editor, I must often tell writers that their stories "do not fit our present needs." But there are times when I want to reply: "Sir, I would not trust you to write a ransom note."”

Want Needs Writing Stories History Fit Notes Editors Ransom

Author:Richard Conniff

“The complaints of contemporary writes, who deplore the increase of luxury and deprevation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“We have seen over and over that white male historians in general have tended to dismiss any history they didn't themselves write,on the grounds that it is unserious, unscholarly, a fad, too "political," "merely" oral and thus unreliable.”

Writing Political White History Males Historian Fads Unreliable

Author:Adrienne Rich

“Who does not know history's first law to be that an author must not dare to tell anything but the truth? And its second that he must make bold to tell the whole truth? That there must be no suggestion of partiality anywhere in his writings? Nor of malice?”

Knows Writing Firsts Doe Whole Truth Law History Dare Suggestions Malice Whole Truth Partiality

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“For if I should not believe all that is written by Historians, of the glorious acts of Alexander, or Caesar; I do not think the Ghost of Alexander, or Caesar, had any just cause to be offended; or any body else, but the Historian. If Livy say the Gods made once a Cow speak, and we believe it not; we distrust not God therein, but Livy. So that it is evident, that whatsoever we believe, upon no other reason, then what is drawn from authority of men only, and their writings; whether they be sent from God or not, is Faith in men only.”

Source: Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised student edition

“Unlike modern military codes, ancient texts are almost never purposely misleading, purposely scrambled. ... indeed, literacy was so uncommon until classical times that the very writing of a message sufficed to keep it from almost everybody.”

Writing Reading History Modern Military Messages Ancient Code Literacy Mislead Uncommon

Author:E. J. W. Barber

“If you write a post and put it on a blog, that's a historical document. If you change your template, then that entry looks completely different. It's the same words, but not the same meaning. This all depends on what historical questions that people will be asking and we can't know what they will want.”

People Ifs Knows Want Writing Looks Different History Depends Asking Historical Posts Documents Blogs Entry

Author:Joshua Greenberg

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”

Ifs Writing Stories Form History Taught Forgotten Storytelling Storyteller Telling Stories Good Storytelling

Author:Rudyard Kipling

“The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.”

Writing Wells May Courses History Movement Mouthpiece

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.”

People Ifs Writing Littles Matter Hands Winning History Battle Kicks Pants Humiliating

Author:Benito Mussolini

“As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.”

Writing Trying Humans Wisdom Politics Human Beings History Flying Civilized Kill Me Overhead

Author:George Orwell

“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.”

People Men Writing History All Time

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“The main thing is to make history, not to write it.”

Writing History Military Making History

Author:Otto von Bismarck

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.”

“In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.”

Should Writing Moments Use History Ignorance Perception Frozen Freeze Encyclopedia

Book:Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas

Source: Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas

“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.”

Life Writing Stills Fiction History Four Corners Attachment Spiders

Author:Virginia Woolf

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

Life Inspirational Writing Mind Ideas Wisdom Truth Success Science Religion Reading Inspiring Business Education Knowledge History Learning Return Perception Innovation Originals Personal Growth Educational Dimensions New Ideas Great Idea Past Life Schooled Homeschooling Live And Learn Great Education Original Ideas Business Innovation Human Thought Lifelong Learner Great Educational Innovation And Business Motivational Leadership Teacher Student Inspirational Education Creative Ideas Knowledge Education Ideas And Creativity Education And Knowledge Inspire Creativity Creative Thought Ideas And Innovation Old Ideas Student Learning Inspirational Educational Learning New Never Stop Learning Knowledge And Learning Knowledge Learning Power Of Ideas Brain Power Inspirational Learning Cooperative Learning Learning And Growing Lessons To Be Learned Intellectual Growth Inspiring Educational Creating The Future Short Teacher Learned Person Experience And Learning Creative Team

Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”

Writing Art Philosophy Poetry History Pieces Poet Hot Ice Melting Stoves Poetry By Poets

Author:Robert Frost

“Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.”

Writing History Ocean Drinking Writing History

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”

Inspirational Writing Said Two Book Motivational Culture Causes History Written Winner Loser Foe Clash Glorify Fables History Books Two Cultures

Book:The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

“Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.”

Men Writing History Greatness Great Men Historical Fiction Historian Making History Great History Written History History Making

Author:Oscar Wilde

“History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it.”

Writing History Pieces Paper Print Covered

Author:Otto von Bismarck

“A man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed such a man exists.”

Ifs Men Writing Interesting History Bias

Book:The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Source: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

“Imagination plays too important a role in the writing of history, and what is imagination but the projection of the author's personality.”

Inspirational Writing Important Play Motivational Imagination Roles History Personality Projection

Book:Napoleon: For and Against

Source: Napoleon: For and Against

“The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation.”

Writing Given Interest History Generations Prejudice Historiography Writing History

Author:John Hope Franklin

“The first law of history is to dread uttering a falsehood; the next is not to fear stating the truth; lastly, the historian's writings should be open to no suspicion of partiality or animosity.”

Should Writing Firsts Law Next History Historian Dread Falsehood Suspicion Animosity Partiality

Author:Pope Leo XIII

“Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.”

Writing May History Modern Strikes Teeth Heels Modern History

Author:Walter Raleigh

“The past actually happened. History is what someone took the time to write down.”

Writing Past History Happened

Author:A. Whitney Brown

“That historians should give their own country a break, I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds it difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to and critical of historians, and they in turn should be constantly on their guard.”

“Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.”

Writing Trying Age Past Form History Conditions Conception

Book:History, Frontier, and Section: Three Essays

Source: History, Frontier, and Section: Three Essays

“The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don't know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand.”

People Knows Way Writing Persons Wish History Ought Educated Historian Educated Person

Author:John Keegan

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.”

“History is the torch that is meant to illuminate the past, to guard us against the repetition of our mistakes of other days. We cannot join in the rewriting of history to make it conform to our comfort and convenience.”

Writing Past Mistake History Comfort Historical Conform Repetition Convenience Torches Rewriting

Author:Claude Bowers

“History is what we read, write and think about the past.”

Thinking Writing Past History

Author:Michael Howard

“History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”

People Thinking Writing Ends Truth History Generations Products Historical Myth

Author:E. L. Doctorow

“Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.”

Writing Believe Change History Historical Memoir Can't Change Believe You Can

Author:David Ben-Gurion

“One of the rules of history is that people do not write about what is too obvious to mention. And so the information, having never been recorded, is now lost for ever.”

People Writing Lost History Information Obvious

Author:Michael Bywater

“It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.”

Writing Humans Doe Realizing Justice Human Beings Race History Stage Diversity Social Justice Historical Pity Human Race Jam

Author:Rebecca West

“The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.”

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History Quotes