Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.

The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.

History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.

History is an illogical record. It hinges on nothing. It is a story that changes, and has accidents, and recovers with scars.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Nobody knows what really happened in any historical period. There are some periods where we know more than others, though.

History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.

History must always be taken with a grain of salt. It is, after all, not a science but an art.

Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than thatsomething has occurred.

To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire. It wants only to show what actually [essentially?] happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen).

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

People have different ways of interpreting history.

People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one who does a dramatic interpretation of history.

History is a facsimile of events held together by finally biographical information.

The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

There is no such thing as a final draft of history.

History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery containing a host of copies and very few originals

History is a picture gallery where there are few originals and many copies.

The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.