History Lies Quotes

If history is written by the victorious, what if the victors lied? ~ Michael Duncan

The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today ... The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow"
"Autobiography of an Historian", An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949). ~ G. M. Trevelyan

The perpetual stream of human nature is formed into ever-changing shallows, eddies, falls and pools by the land over which it passes. Perhaps the only real value of history lies in considering this endlessly varied play between the essence and the accidents. ~ Mary Renault

Mythology is a set of primitive lies that people rarely believe. This is rather different from history, which is a set of lies that people actually believe. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

History is the lie. History's words stain otherwise pristine books, drops of inky poison frosted in sugared deception. ~ Courtney M. Privett

Wars, plagues, names upon tombs tell us only what happened. But history lies in the cracks in between. In the inexplicable, invisible turns and decisions. A person saying no instead of yes. …It is not that they had lived…but how. ~ Sarah Blake

The challenge - and much of the fun - of writing in an established future history lies in incorporating new knowledge while remaining true to what has gone before. Expanding and enriching, not contradicting. ~ Edward M. Lerner

Like an organism, photography was born whole. It is in our progressive discovery of it that its history lies. ~ John Szarkowski

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft. ~ Winston S. Churchill

The truth of history lies simultaneously in the substratum of created existence (since all beings are the willed realizations of God's love); in the fulfillment of the future of history (since God's love, in His will and its expressions - namely, created existence - is identifiable with the final communion of creation with the life of God); and in the incarnate Christ (since on God's part the personification of this loving will is the incarnate Christ). Whereby Christ becomes the "principle" and "end" of all things, the One who not only moves history from within its own unfolding but who also moves existence even from within the multiplicity of created things, toward the true being which is true life and true communion. ~ John D. Zizioulas

History is a set of lies agreed upon. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Just when you think progress has been made the same old lies come creeping around again. ~ Marty Rubin

It's true what they say, then-history is written by the victors. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

We are so dull that we rarely realize how much history lies hidden in marriage, and how the one word spoken by the bride makes all the difference between cattle-raising and a nation's good breeding. ~ Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passion, but now all gone, one generation vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone like ghosts at cock-crow. ~ George Macaulay Trevelyan

In my dream,
the ghost of history lies down beside me,

rolls over, pins me beneath a heavy arm. ~ Natasha Trethewey

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull. ~ Anatole France

It occurs to me to wonder: do I believe in any god, or even positively not believe, as James does? I believe in systems and methods. I believe in the beauties of philosophy and poetry. I believe that the work we do and leave behind us is our afterlife; and I believe that history lies, but sometimes so well that I can't bring myself to resent it. I believe that truth is beauty, but not, I'm afraid, the reverse. It doesn't seem sufficient to sustain one in life's rigorous moments. Perhaps I shall embrace Islam. Its standards for poetry seem very high. ~ Emma Bull

Mankind can still continue to live without the Englishman, can continue without Germany, can continue all too well without the Russian, can continue without science, can continue without bread - it is only without beauty that we cannot continue, for there will be nothing at all to do in the world! That's where the whole secret lies, that's where the whole of history lies! Science itself would not last a minute without beauty - ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To hear how much of a great human being you were - even if you really weren't - open your ears at your funeral. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Until comparatively recently in its history, Maycomb County was so cut off from the rest of the nation that some of its citizens, unaware of the South's political predilections over the past ninety years, still voted Republican. ~ Harper Lee

It is a curious thing: man, the centre and creator of all science, is the only object which our science has not yet succeeded in including in a homogeneous representation of the universe. We know the history of his bones, but no ordered place has yet been found in nature for his reflective intelligence. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender nor retreat. ~ William Travis, At The Alamo

History is an enigmatic mistress who likes to keep her lovers on their toes ~ Anonymous

English history turned on Henry VIII and his desires, his whims almost. And it was down to Cromwell to make those desires happen. He was the guy that fixed it. He was also the guy that eased Henry's conscience. Because Henry VIII had an enormous, tender conscience and great theological knowledge. ~ Ben Miles

I remembered attending one of Dr. Kerry's lectures, which he had begun by writing, "Who writes history?" on the blackboard. I remembered how strange the question had seemed to me then. My idea of a historian was not human; it was of someone like my father, more prophet than man, whose visions of the past, like those of the future, could not be questioned, or even augmented. Now, as I passed through King's college, in the shadow of the enormous chapel, my old diffidence seemed almost funny. Who writes history? I thought. I do. ~ Tara Westover

Every year several million people are killed quite pointlessly by epidemics and other natural catastrophes. And we should shrink from sacrificing a few hundred thousand for the most promising experiment in history? Not to mention the legions of those who die of under-nourishment and tuberculosis in coal and quicksilver mines, rice-fields and cotton plantations. No one takes any notice of them; nobody asks why or what for; but if here we shoot a few thousand objectively harmful people, the humanitarians all over the world foam at the mouth. Yes, we liquidated the parasitic part of the peasantry and let it die of starvation. It was a surgical operation which had to be done once and for all; but in the good old days before the Revolution just as many died in any dry year - only senselessly and pointlessly. The victims of the Yellow River floods in China amount sometimes to hundreds of thousands. Nature is generous in her senseless experiments on mankind. Why should mankind not have the right to experiment on itself? ~ Arthur Koestler

In his history of solitude, Anthony Storr writes about the importance of being able to feel at peace in one's own company. But many find that, trained by the Net, they cannot find solitude even at a lake or beach or on a hike. Stillness makes them anxious. I see the beginnings of a backlash as some young people become disillusioned with social media. There is,. too, the renewed interest in yoga, Eastern religions, meditating, and slowness. ~ Sherry Turkle

I often think what interesting history we are making for the student of the twenty-first century. ~ William Carey

I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The press is like a woman: sublime when it lies, it will not let go until it has forced you to believe it. The public, like a foolish husband, always succumbs. ~ Honore De Balzac

May Heaven to this Union continue its beneficence ~ George Washington

History is the distillation of rumour. ~ Thomas Carlyle

When Numa died, Rome by the twin disciplines of peace and war was as eminent for self-mastery as for military power. ~ Livy

The greatest mercy, I have often thought, of the Mediterranean coast lies in its mosquitoes. Did we not suffer from their unwelcome attention, we could not bear our holidays to end. ~ Winifred Holtby

What is happening, I think, it's really bigger than psychedelics, it's bigger than human evolution. We are not making the waves in this ocean. We are corks, riding the waves of the ocean. But we are privileged, by perhaps chance alone, to occupy a unique moment in the history of the universe. A moment when the universe goes through some kind of self-transforming, evolutionary, inflationary expansion. That's what's happening. ~ Terence McKenna

It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any free government can be permanent, where the public worship of God, and the support of religion, constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape. The future experience of Christendom, and chiefly of the American states, must settle this problem, as yet new in the history of the world, abundant, as it has been, in experiments in the theory of government. ~ Joseph Story

Young men just don't know what it means to be a man. There are so many lies about what it means to be a man whether that be get a bunch of girls or get a bunch of money or don't cry and don't have emotions. Nobody is teaching them how to be men. ~ Trip Lee

Something like one in thirty men in England in 1377 was either a member of a religious order or a fully ordained clergyman. ~ Juliet Barker

History can be ironic, particularly with regard to the invention of traditions in general and traditions of language in particular. Few people have noticed, or are willing to acknowledge, that the Land of Israel of biblical texts did not include Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, or their surrounding areas, but rather only Samaria and a number of adjacent areas - in other words, the land of the northern kingdom of Israel. Because ~ Shlomo Sand

Do everything with your whole heart, or not at all. Don't put up with lies or with people who lie to you. Don't risk hurting people just for the fun of it. And lastly, your best foot shouldn't be put forward; it should be with you at all times - right there beside the other one. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Boston is a very proud franchise. The NBA misses them when they are not in the mix. They, along with teams like the Knicks and 76ers are a big part of the heart, soul and history of the league. ~ Doug Collins

Maybe happiness lies in imperfection more than perfection. ~ Ketan Bhagat

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1965

My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours together. We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all citizens.

This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.

For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own.

Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves m a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time of change-- rapid and fantastic change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting old ways.

Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.

THE AMERICAN COVENANT

They came here--the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened-- to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.

JUSTICE AND CHANGE

Firs ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The Metropolitan Museum has all of our collections online, all our scholarly publications and catalogues since 1965. We have online features like the timeline of art history. ~ Thomas P. Campbell

To me, it was a sad fate to have been born into a period and a world where everything was in tip-top order, and the only real excitement was to be found in history books and occasionally also in the paper. ~ Hans Jonas

Often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come. ~ Stefan Zweig

A place for the newly weds and nearly deads
I'm counting the stones I hope you know I love you.
Got a lot of friends 6 feet under us.
Counting down the days till we join the party.
Thoughts of your nightmare projected through mine...
Breathing in these lies is no surprise
These evil things are all we know
Lets take these lives where we want to go.
The future is our prize, when the stars align.
Ghouls and ghosts will haunt my soul but they will never take me.
Before I go, I want to show that we can make a difference.
We've got some dumb perceptions.

But I've got the death connection...

All the hate that you have...
Just throw it away
Life is meant for more,
But we're too distracted..
Too caught up in the anger and judgment..
Caught up in the web of lies
I've heard these things keep our blood boiling,
Keeps us alive, and moving forward...
If that's the case I was born a dead man.
And I'm forever a ghost.
Hatred is something that we're brought up to see.
Now everybody's looking at me
I hope they know...
They won't get their satisfaction. ~ Ghost Town

A millennium's worth of lies leads to a single truth - the future belongs to the young, if the old would kindly die and get the hell out of the way. ~ Scott Sigler

It's the same hope we have to hold for humanity - that we can transform our roles, roles constructed like so many doors for us to go through by history, and by and by transform the whole edifice of human relations. ~ Stan Goff

Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking. ~ W. H. Auden

We are battered and torn from the day we are born, in a world that has blinded and bound us.
Is it any surprise we don't open our eyes to the truth that's disguised all around us?
Like the secrets we keep, and don't know we're keeping, from before there was time, before there were lies.
Can we find You again, this far from the garden? Do we dare even try?
Do we dare pay attention - dare even mention - the mystery we find ourselves caught in?
And do we dare to remember all that we have forgotten?
--"Do We Dare" from Feel Free (1997) ~ Carolyn Arends

Painful truth is better than a pleasant lie. ~ Bryant McGill

History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all. ~ Will Durant

The truth is sealed.
Life goes on.
Till one day, history changed ...
Like thief in the night,
aliens invade human.
Chaos happens prior to the new order of coexistence.
The truth is sealed.
Life goes on.
Till one day, history changed. ~ Toba Beta

No one lives in this land. Men once dwelt here, ages ago; but none remain now. They became an evil people, as legends tell, for they fell under the shadow of Angmar. But all were destroyed in the war that brought the North Kingdom to its end. But that is now so long ago that the hills have forgotten them, though a shadow still lies on the land. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called "literary economics," as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the "new economic history." A man does what he can, and in the more elegant - one is tempted to say "fancier" - techniques I am, as one who received his formation in the 1930s, untutored. A colleague has offered to provide a mathematical model to decorate the work. It might be useful to some readers, but not to me. Catastrophe mathematics, dealing with such events as falling off a height, is a new branch of the discipline, I am told, which has yet to demonstrate its rigor or usefulness. I had better wait. Econometricians among my friends tell me that rare events such as panics cannot be dealt with by the normal techniques of regression, but have to be introduced exogenously as "dummy variables." The real choice open to me was whether to follow relatively simple statistical procedures, with an abundance of charts and tables, or not. In the event, I decided against it. For those who yearn for numbers, standard series on bank reserves, foreign trade, commodity prices, money supply, security prices, rate of interest, and the like are fairly readily available in the historical statistics. ~ Charles P. Kindleberger

Stretched and skewed
Tap of the 8-ball and the cue
Scratches fall through
They are the scars of you ~ Criss Jami

Paul Bowles said, "The sky hides the night behind it, and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above." Joseph ~ Mort Castle