Historical Fact Quotes

#1. That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain historical fact.

Charles Hodge

#2. But it is a historical fact that the Jews, and no one else, gave the world the Bible. It is a historical fact that the Jews introduced to the pagan world the idea of a God who demanded righteousness......Even most of the books of the New Testament were written by Jews.

Harold S. Kushner

#3. Spain, for so long a mere geographical expression, was somehow transformed into an historical fact.

J.H. Elliott

#4. In the U.S., diversity is a politically correct slogan. In India, it is a historical fact. Much as we in the West may resent it, India has a lot to teach us when it comes to religious tolerance.

Gary Weiss

#5. Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.

Jean M. Auel

#6. If Christians were Christians, there would be no anti-Semitism. Jesus was a Jew. There is nothing that the ordinary Christian so dislikes to remember as this awkward historical fact.

John Haynes Holmes

#7. While what I write is always largely consistent with the records that remain I freely admit that where historical fact proves a barrier to invention, I simply move a detail a little one way or another.

Sara Sheridan

#8. Relationality [is] not only [a] descriptive or historical fact of our formation, but also an ongoing normative dimension of our social and political lives, one in which we are compelled to take stock of our interdependence.

Judith Butler

#9. Certainly it is not to invent explanations which dismiss the chief political and historical fact of the matter: that the forgery is being believed. This fact is more important than the (historically speaking, secondary) circumstance that it is forgery.

Hannah Arendt

#10. Whether considered as a doctrine, or as an historical fact, or as a movemement, socialism, if it really remains socialism, cannotbe brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic church ... Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.

Pope Pius XI

#11. It is a curious historical fact that modern quantum mechanics began with two quite different mathematical formulations: the differential equation of Schroedinger and the matrix algebra of Heisenberg. The two apparently dissimilar approaches were proved to be mathematically equivalent.

Richard P. Feynman

#12. Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically; even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history.

Allen Tate

#13. It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five ... Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066.

David Attenborough

#14. Through its imperialist system Britain brought about untold suffering of millions of people. And this is an historical fact. To be able to admit this would increase the respect, you know, which we have for British institutions.

Nelson Mandela

#15. Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.

Jack Keane

#16. WARNING
Any Relationship to any historical fact WHATSOEVER is entirely coincidental. You have been WARNED

Cressida Cowell

#17. An inert historical fact is any fact about a perfectly ordinary arrangement of matter in the world at some point in the past that is no longer discernible, a fact that has left no footprints at all in the world today.

Daniel Dennett

#18. Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed

Paulo Freire

#19. No, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied ... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers.

Heinrich Schliemann

#20. I should have known better. Pro-life arguments are now based on scientific evidence and the pro-choice arguments are not. That is a cultural, historical fact.

Stanley Fish

#21. 'The Borgias' is quite good because it does stick quite steadfastly to historical fact, so a lot of people who are interested in the historical element will love watching it, but they were also a ridiculously dramatic family.

Holliday Grainger

#22. The occurrence of successive forms of life upon our globe is an historical fact, which cannot be disputed; and the relation of these successive forms, as stages of evolution of the same type, is established in various cases.

Thomas Henry Huxley

#23. Our faith does more than assent to propositions, such as the historical fact of Christ's resurrection. Persons who believe in the resurrection will live in a manner that reflects that belief.

Kevin Swanson

#24. The depreciation of historical fact is deeply, and probably functionally, ingrained in the ideology of the scientific profession, the same profession that places the highest of all values upon factual details of other sorts.

Thomas S. Kuhn

#25. It's a historical fact that the Stasi did horrible things and that they monitored a lot of people in East Germany, but I find it very interesting to think about the importance of the Western secret services back then and still working today.

Christian Schwochow

#26. But we cannot just take this historical fact for granted. We must make it live.

Wendell Willkie

#27. they play fast and loose with both historical fact and traditional religious interpretation in order to understand their past as they believe it must be understood

Mary R. Habeck

#28. It is a matter of public shame that while we have now commemorated our hundredth anniversary, not one in every ten children attending Public schools throughout the colonies is acquainted with a single historical fact about Australia.

Henry Lawson

#29. And of course it has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't been with a women since I came to your bed back in February-Devlin.

Gaelen Foley

#30. The places and people in the following stories have been represented accurately to the best of my ability; yet my writing is supposed to be a tale, and as in any historical novel, my own imagination has blended with fact to create poetical reality.

Eric Sloane

#31. I first started writing historical fiction in the late '70s and kept pictures of Kathleen Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers on my refrigerator until my first book was published by Avon in 1982. The biggest advantage of this genre for me is that it allows me to blend fact and fiction.

Virginia Henley

#32. No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#33. There's a historical milestone in the fact that our Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place a mere 66 years after the Wright Brothers' first flight.

Buzz Aldrin

#34. Weber,... argues that... personal bias should not preclude the scientific ascertainment of objective historical facts.

Max Weber

#35. Faction" is a type of historical fiction that combines fact with fiction.

Martin Herman

#36. Your woodlot is, in fact, an historical document which faithfully records your personal philosophy.

Aldo Leopold

#37. The historical approach to understanding of scientific fact is what differentiates the scholar in science from the mere experimenter.

Edwin Boring

#38. The idea of a sandwich as a snack goes back to Roman times. Scandinavians perfected the technique with the Danish open-faced sandwich, or smorroebrod, consisting of thinly sliced, buttered bread and many delectable toppings.

DeeDee Stovel

#39. A historical perspective can also help free us from the ever-present danger
especially at danger in the social sciences
of absolutizing a theory or method which is actually relative to the fact that we live at a given moment in time in the development of our particular culture.

Rollo May

#40. The historical religions have the tendency to become ends in themselves, and, as it were, to put themselves in God's place, and, in fact, there is nothing that is so apt to obscure God's face as a religion.

Martin Buber

#41. Most fourth graders can't say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that.

Susan Orlean

#42. The general consensus among historians, among the ones who can handle the fact that 'Lincoln' is, in fact, historical fiction, is that we demonstrate enormous fidelity to history and that, beyond that, we've actually contributed a line of thinking about Lincoln's presidency that's somewhat original.

Tony Kushner

#43. In my qualified opinion as a Biblical scholar, there is 'massive' and overwhelming historical evidence that the New Testament manuscripts are in fact reliable."


~R. Alan Woods [2013]

R. Alan Woods

#44. Historical fiction is not only a respectable literary form; it is a standing reminder of the fact that history is about human beings.

Helen Cam

#45. Some day ... as you grow older, you will find imagination sometimes produces a truth that is greater than any fact.

James Jones

#46. The Assembly has witnessed over the last weeks how historical truth is established; once an allegation has been repeated a few times, it is no longer an allegation, it is an established fact, even if no evidence has been brought out in order to support it.

Dag Hammarskjold

#47. The blurring of fact and fiction has great commercial potential, which is bound to be corrupting in historical terms.

Antony Beevor

#48. Jesus was a white man, too. Its like we have, hes a historical figure thats a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?

Megyn Kelly

#49. While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.

Barney Frank

#50. Coconut oil has been described as the "World's Healthiest Dietary Oil". There is a mountain of historical evidence and medical research to verify this fact

Bruce Fife

#51. Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from him and flows through our being also. This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity.

Albert Schweitzer

#52. In this universe of ours, with its wealth of errors and legends, historical data and false information, one absolute truth is the fact that Superman is Clark Kent. All the rest is always open to debate.

Umberto Eco

#53. Another historical peculiarity of the place was the fact that its large mansions, those relics of another time, had not been reconstructed to serve as nursing homes for that vast population of comatose and the dying who were kept alive, unconscionably, through trailblazing medical invention.

John Cheever

#54. Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.
- Winston S. Churchill

Ellen Brazer

#55. The fact is that a true human privilege is based upon the anatomical privilege only in virtue of the total situation. Psychoanalysis can establish its truths only in the historical context.

Simone De Beauvoir

#56. It is highly probable that the bulk of the Jew's ancestors 'never' lived in Palestine 'at all,' which witnesses the power of historical assertion over fact.

H.G.Wells

#57. Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that contains moral, ethical, and legal truisms that any person of any religion or even an atheist can recognize and appreciate.

Cliff Stearns

#58. Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

Hu Shih

#59. Everything in 'The Tudors' is initially based on my historical research, and the fact is that the most unlikely scenes were the ones which were probably most based on reality. I prefer to be as real as possible, and there is so much of that story that you just can't make up.

Michael Hirst

#60. In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice ... Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin.

Noam Chomsky

#61. Paul's lack of concern with the historical Jesus is not due, as some have argued, to his emphasis on Christological rather than historical concerns. It is due to the simple fact that Paul had no idea who the living Jesus was, nor did he care.

Reza Aslan

#62. In questions of law or of fact conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man; they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry.

Samuel Johnson

#63. Collins masterfully blends fact and fiction ... transcends the historical thriller.

Jeffery Deaver

#64. At the end of the first half-century of engine-driven flight, we are confronted with the stark fact that the historical significance of aircraft has been primarily military and destructive.

Charles Lindbergh

#65. I had no interest in history classes. In fact, I used to sleep in history classes, I used to bunk classes. But that is how students are supposed to be, no? I developed an interest in history much later. I have made a few films based on historical facts.

Shekhar Kapur

#66. Things are always obvious after the fact. The civil servant was a very intelligent person, and this mistake is much more prevalent than one would think. It has to do with the way our mind handles historical information.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#67. That's why so many people want to be victims today. So they don't have to accept the burden of being raised without historical calamity - without war or famine. They want an excuse for the fact they're still not happy.

Scott Turow

#68. It's so damn hard to write a great historical mystery based on fact. It's not for lack of trying.

Jon Turteltaub

#69. Genres have a history and impose a historical character upon the writer. What is interesting in the poem involves a certain kind of dramatization of the self that you don't have to engage in in the essay. In fact, the essay is a more social medium than the poem.

Vijay Seshadri

#70. It is the historical mind, rather than the scientific (in the physicist's sense), that destroyed the mythical orientation of European culture; the historian, not the mathematician, introduced the "higher criticism," the standard of actual fact. It is he who is the real apostle of the realistic age.

Susanne Katherina Langer

#71. He did not want to go to his grave knowing he had risked nothing for the woman he wanted. He wasn't an ass, though. Or if he was, he did not wish to give her incontrovertible evidence of the fact. What to say to her, then, when he knew he was likely to speak too gruffly?

Carolyn Jewel

#72. For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Maya Angelou

#73. The fact of the matter is that nationalism thinks in terms of historical destinies, while racism dreams of eternal contaminations, transmitted from the origins of time through an endless sequence of loathsome copulations: outside history.
-Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

Nancy Ordover

#74. Due to the fact that I experienced personally the situation of a political prisoner, I have an historical commitment to all those that were or are prisoners just because they expressed their views, their public opinion, their own opinions.

Dilma Rousseff

#75. I read numerous books - loads in fact - and, as I always do when recording a historical project, immersed myself into the subject matter. I spent many hours at Henry's old homes, such as Hampton Court, and visiting the Tower of London. I read no other books during that period.

Rick Wakeman

#76. I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure - that's a verifiable fact.

Megyn Kelly

#77. What do ladies wear beneath their riding trousers?"
"I would think an infamous rake would already know."
"I was never infamous. In fact, I'm fairly standard as far as rakes go."
"The ones who deny it are the worst.

Lisa Kleypas

#78. Christendom is not primarily a mental construct. It is above all a fact, indeed the longest historical experience the Church has had. Hence the deep impact it has made on its life and thought.

Gustavo Gutierrez

#79. Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

#80. To secure his king's trust, his family's future, and perhaps even his own happiness, he needed to convince her he was more than a mercenary -- in fact, a man who would stand by her side.

Sandra Jones

#81. The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.

Hilary Mantel

#82. During World War I the Canadians were the shock troops. In many historical cases, Canadians have been very proficient at killing, and doing what we have to in order to survive. But no one wants to acknowledge that fact.

Joseph Boyden

#83. Many of those who scoff at the trustworthiness of the Bible do so completely overlooking the fact that thousands of archaeological discoveries have affirmed the historical reliability of the Bible.

Charlie Campbell

#84. History, in fact, is no more than a list of the crimes of humanity, human follies and accidents

Edward Gibbon

#85. The mere notion of photography, when we introduce it into our meditation on the genesis of historical knowledge and its true value, suggests the simple question: Could such and such a fact, as it is narrated here, have been photographed?

Paul Valery

#86. The fact is: Jesus wrote not a solitary word that survives. Equally astounding is historical silence: not a single historical account refers to him during his lifetime from any source whatsoever, Roman or Jewish, official or personal.

Thomas Daniel Nehrer

#87. There are now 17,000 local American police forces that are armed with rocket launchers, bazookas, heavy machine guns, all kinds of chemical sprays, in fact some of them have tanks. You now have local police departments that are equipped beyond the standard of American heavy infantry.

Paul Craig Roberts

#88. The greatest historical events in the twentieth century - in fact, in all of human history - have been the overthrow of capitalism and establishment of societies run by and for the working class in the two great communist revolutions in Russia and China.

Grover Furr

#89. Whether David believed in her affliction or not didn't change the fact that it existed, and some day it would catch up with her.

Tamara Hughes

#90. We feel a special bond with Sicily and its people - in fact, our first campaigns were shot in Sicily, like the one shot in Vucciria Sicilian historical market We enjoyed showing the faces and the characters that crowd that beautiful market every day.

Stefano Gabbana

#91. I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

Rick Moody