Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Most of us get our history through story.

A nation’s attitude toward its own history is like a window into its own soul.

History is a novel whose author is the people.

I don't think the British carry a historical consciousness either.

We are ourselves history and share the responsibility for world history and our position in it. But we gravely lack awareness of this responsibility.

History is written not only for posterity but by posterity as well.

The lack of a sense of history is the damnation of the modern world.

History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.

In the West, since the collapse of communism and the fall of the Soviet Union, the one discipline both the official and unofficial cultures have united in casting aside has been history.

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Most of us, I think, are conscious of history swirling around outside the door, but when we're in the house, we're usually not dealing with history. We're not thinking about history.

Whole generations have forgotten history.

Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.

History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.

While we read history we make history.

I don't think you should ever run from history. You should learn from it and embrace it.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

The way you 'take history' is also a way of 'making history.'

History is a battleground... but it has always been the case. Remembering is a radical act. Choosing what is important and what belongs in the overstuffed metaphorical dustbin of history is of vital importance.

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. This is what makes the trade of historian so attractive.

Even historians with knowledge of the event, and with the materials before them on which to form a judgment, see but little way into the causes and consequences of the great events in human history.

History is too serious to be left to historians.