Samuel Johnson Quotes

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

I find that the history books that we teach our kids with are not fully truthful, in my opinion.

A lot of what we think of as history is actually just a version of events which may or may not be true.

History is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.

History is imperfect and biased, and it always, always has omissions. The most common omissions are the bits that the writer of that history took for granted that his readers would know.

No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture; but modern history is not a very satisfactory side-arm in political polemics; it grows less and less so.

Oh do not read history, for that I know must be false.

Learning from history is impossible if the narrative is wrong.

No history can be a faithful mirror. If it were, it would be as long and as dull as life itself. It must be a selection, and, being a selection, must inevitably be biased.

In history there's what's written down and there's what actually happened.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not exist.

Since Caesar, we know his historians are liars. The good writers get read. Bad history doesn't get read.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.

Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

How real is history? Is it just an enormous soup so full of disparate ingredients that it is uncharacterizable?

Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence.

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

History justifies whatever we want it to. It teaches absolutely nothing, for it contains everything and gives examples of everything.

For me, it's always difficult when a historical film claims to depict or represent a reality that none of us can know, that is always different. It's always the case. We never know what happened then.

You never want to judge your character.

History -- its what those bitter old men write.

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