Henry Adams Quotes

Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.

As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.

I'm a storyteller; that is what I do. And I'm particularly interested in history; and in history of a certain era. But what is interesting for me is how many, how many things you see repeated.

History repeats itself. So you might wanna pay attention.

History is but a confused heap of facts.

The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.

History repeats herself.

History, we know, is apt to repeat itself.

History, like wallpaper, repeats itself and can also make a room look old-fashioned.

History repeats itself and History never repeats itself are about equally true.

There's a cyclical nature to what people like in the world. Through time, things come around again.

Nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line.

If you study the history of mankind, it seems to be a history of violence. Certainly the history of art, whether you look at paintings or movies or plays or whatever, is just a litany of murder and death.

History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.

The beauty of history is that historians have the ability to find patterns, the big picture. When you make a movie, you try to find that. I'm doing in the cinema what historians try to do in their own media.

To think historically is almost the same thing now as if in all ages history had been made according to theory.

What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.

History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species.

History repeats itself over and over again, but most of us have short memories.

History is the open Bible: we historians are not priests to expound it infallibly: our function is to teach people to read it and to reflect upon it for themselves.

It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir.

History is a strange experience. The world is quite small now; but history is large and deep. Sometimes you can go much farther by sitting in your own home and reading a book of history, than by getting onto a ship or an airplane and traveling a thousand miles.

"History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.

I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.