Bertrand Russell Quotes

Of course history is easily manipulated - though that makes it even more important for us to know what actually happened.

We learn from history. That's what it's all about.

What are your historical Facts still more your biographical Wilt thou know a man by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts

History may never have all the facts, but history always has the last word.

The facts of history have been too well rehearsed.

All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all power, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would not submit to learn to hem a ruffle, of his wife, or his wife's maid; but if a mere wish could attain it, he would rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle.

Can't disagree with the need for a grasp of history.

History is more interesting than most people think.

I think you can learn from history.

History is exciting because it's true.

When you think of how history is revealed, we know certain things to be facts at certain periods of time, which turn out not to be so factual as time marches on.

If people really want to know and learn from history, why do they want bad history? Why don't they want good history? Wouldn't you rather know the truth, rather than the legend?

A page of history is worth a volume of logic.

The true historian … reveres the fact rather than any theory.

Histories are to educate so that we understand better for ourselves and for motivation.

Americans are in vital need of the instruction that historians can provide.

In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.

One of the things important about history is to remember the true history.

It isn’t what the book costs. It’s what it will cost you if you don’t read it.

The study of History is the best medicine for a sick mind.

It is easy to see, though it scarcely needs to be pointed out, since it is involved in the fact that Reason is set aside, that faith is not a form of knowledge; for all knowledge is either a knowledge of the eternal, excluding the temporal and historical as indifferent, or it is pure historical knowledge. No knowledge can have for its object the absurdity that the eternal is the historical.

A modern theory of knowledge which takes account of the relational as distinct from the merely relative character of all historical knowledge must start with the assumption that there are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context.

People can burn archives; people can destroy evidence, but to say that history is perishable, that historical evidence is perishable, is different than saying that history is subjective.

Is then thy knowledge of no value, unless another know that thou possessest that knowledge?

History is, and has always been trameled by facts. It may ignore some and deny others; but it cannot accommodate itself unreservedly to theories; it cannot be stripped of things evidenced in favor of things surmised.