Top 100 True History Quotes
#1. The true history of Vietnamese civilian suffering does not fit comfortably into America's preferred postwar narrative - the tale of a conflict nobly fought by responsible commanders and good American boys, who should not be tainted by the occasional mistakes of a few 'bad apples' in their midst.
Nick Turse
#2. The teachings of Elijah Muhammad on how black people have been brainwashed.How they've been taught to love white and hate black, how we've been robbed of our names in slavery.We were robbed of our culture, we were robbed of our true history. So it left us a walking dead man.
Muhammad Ali
#3. (on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.
Bertrand Russell
#4. No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.
Assata Shakur
#5. True history being a mixture of all things, the true historian mingles in everything.
Victor Hugo
#6. There is one true history And one true future. Listen well, For the child sprung from misery Will be the one to bring hope. From the weakest will come strength. From the hunted will come freedom. - Song of Venda
Mary E. Pearson
#7. That rewriting of literary history is most obvious in the case of The Yage Letters, where I was able to show that the true history inverts the official one.
Oliver Harris
#8. The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.
George W. Bush
#9. Marx wrote that 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.' This was witty but far from true. History is never repeated, but it borrows, steals, echoes and commandeers the past to create a hybrid, something unique out of the ingredients of past and present.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
#10. I'm convinced the true history of our time isn't what we read in newspapers or books ... True history is almost invisible. It flows like an underground spring. It takes place in the shadows, and in silence, George. And only a chosen few know what that history is.
Felix J. Palma
#11. My friend is composing an epic in Byronic stanzas entitled "True History of Autua, Last Moriori" & interrupts my journal writing to ask what rhymes with what: - "Streams of blood"? "Themes of mud"? "Robin Hood"?
David Mitchell
#12. Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.
Francis Bacon
#13. True history," said Hearst, with a smile that was, for once, almost charming, "is the final fiction. I thought even you knew that.
Gore Vidal
#14. The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.
Thomas Hardy
#15. One objection I have heard voiced to works of this kind-dealing with Texas-is the amount of gore spilled across the pages. It can not be otherwise. In order to write a realistic and true history of any part of the Southwest, one must narrate such things, even at the risk of monotony.
Robert E. Howard
#16. One of the things important about history is to remember the true history.
George W. Bush
#17. Look rather at the teachings of history, true history, not the history written by Party hacks: genuine democracy, the only valid democracy, is nourished with the blood of martyrs and with the blood of tyrants.
Wei Jingsheng
#19. The best and only true history we have. Everyone interested in creative writing should know this book.
Tony Ardizzone
#20. When women's true history shall have been written, her part in the upbuilding of this nation will astound the world.
Abigail Scott Duniway
#21. Every true history must force us to remember that the past was once as real as the present and as uncertain as the future.
G. M. Trevelyan
#22. I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began.
John Henrik Clarke
#23. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation.
Agatha Christie
#24. A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the result of sudden impulse and accident than of that reason of which we so much boast.
Peter Cooper
#25. I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite, a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man's accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.
Jack Vance
#26. The evidence of history is against you. The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation. It is a question of getting the true perspective, of seeing things in proportion.
Agatha Christie
#27. True there has been more talk of peace since 1945 than, I should think, at any other time in history. At least we hear more and read more about it because man's words, for good or ill, can now so easily reach the millions.
Lester B. Pearson
#28. People kept on talking about the true king of Ankh-Morpork, but history taught a cruel lesson. It said - often in words of blood - that the true king was the one who got crowned."
Terry Pratchett
#29. Well, is true. I did know. Because if possible to paint fakes that look like that? Las Vegas would be the most beautiful city in the history of earth!
Donna Tartt
#30. Sudden falls can come to societies that know too little history or that have furnished their minds with easy one-note propaganda in place of the true complexity and terrible beauty of the storied past.
Dean Koontz
#31. The real comfort is that the history of the world contains so much grief that my small griefs are edged out, and are only cinders at the borders of the fire. I am saying this again because I want it to be true.
Sebastian Barry
#32. There are very good evolutionary reasons for having religion. From early human history we have evolved a need to see God. We have a perception of ourselves and in order for that to be a true perception we have to believe in a soul within us.
Jonathan Trigell
#33. Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
Jean Genet
#34. Somebody made the statement that Donald Trump has built or owns the greatest collection of golf courses, ever, in the history of golf. And I believe that is 100 percent true.
Donald Trump
#35. There is an old saying: In history nothing is true but the names and dates. In fiction everything is true but the names and dates. The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.
Tom Clancy
#36. It's no mystery, Just look at the history, Brave and valiant, strong and true, The victors wear royal blue!
L.R.W. Lee
#37. It's very true that an artist who networks well will have better opportunities than one who doesn't network well. But great networking skills without great art won't change art history.
Mark Kostabi
#38. Benedict and Bernard and the other true monastic peacemakers of history have been effective because they have acted from a deep source of peace within themselves, dating a context for peace. This is the contribution a Christian man or woman of peace can make.
M. Basil Pennington
#39. This simple inability to remember not the true sequence of events but a reconstructed one will make history appear in hindsight to be far more explainable than it actually was - or is.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#40. It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment
Francis Bacon
#41. Everything bad happens to set up something good. I've always found that to be true. I think if most folks look back on the history of their lives, they'll see that.
John Sharp
#42. I am the longest- serving independent in the history of the United States Congress. People of Vermont sent me to Washington as an independent. That is true.
Bernie Sanders
#43. These descendants divined myths in what was really history, for true memories were forgotten in chaos as vast arrays of daivi astras used in the Great War ravaged the land. That war destroyed almost everything. It took centuries for India to regain its old cultural vigour and intellectual depth.
Amish Tripathi
#44. Official history is merely a veil to hide the truth of what really happened. When the veil is lifted, again and again we see that not only is the official version not true, it is often 100% wrong.
David Icke
#45. As a general rule, no one should ever be allowed to say there is no history of racial tension here, because that sentence has never been true anywhere on Earth,
John Oliver
#46. Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.
Haruki Murakami
#47. I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
#48. In The Tricky Art of Co-Existing, Sandi Toksvig navigates life's little dilemmas with wit and not-so-common sense. You'll learn the strange history of common courtesy and the one true secret of social success: how to not drive everyone around you crazy.
William Poundstone
#49. It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success wears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History.
Victor Hugo
#50. Only in a secular history where men and women are freed for unexpected true humanity can God reveal his own being.
Edward Schillebeeckx
#51. There are no absolute truths, and the best historians know that. You strive to capture a moment of time, and if your work is done properly, history becomes a written photograph.
Gloria Naylor
#52. World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.
Ken Follett
#53. To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.
Alfred North Whitehead
#54. True. We both could. One of these days our search history is going to tip off the NSA and then we're going to be in trouble. It was a valid worry for a writer.
Chelsea M. Cameron
#55. Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.
Brian Herbert
#56. That genius is a rare exception ( It's not true. Talent and genius have been wasted on enormous scale throughout our history; this is all I know for sure.
Eric Hoffer
#57. Revolutionaries - true revolutionaries - are aggressive, ruthless, and generally seize the main chance, as William Henry Drayton did when he saw that stump-speaking was getting him nowhere. But defenders of the status quo tend toward caution and legalisms and inaction until it is too late
John Buchanan
#58. China has had a long and complex history and has managed to evolve its own culture for 4,000 years. It therefore not necessarily true that we know exactly what is best for the internal structure of China.
Henry A. Kissinger
#59. For decades, this great leader, often at Dr. King's side, was denied his rightful place in history because he was openly gay. No medal can change that, but today, we honor Bayard Rustin's memory by taking our place in his march towards true equality, no matter who we are or who we love.
Barack Obama
#60. True love, and what it is, and how do you know what it is. Is it just chemistry, or is it years and years of commitment and being together and hanging in there building a history? And how do you find both?
Patricia Heaton
#61. My true love is history, but I didn't know how I could make a living at it.
Robert Zoellick
#62. "History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.
G. M. Trevelyan
#63. The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.
Ernest Renan
#65. Never in the history of the world have we had easier access to more information - some of it true, some of it false, and much of it partially true. Consequently, never in the history of the world has it been more important to learn how to correctly discern between truth and error.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
#66. Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
#67. True heroes don't fall. They only encounter temporary setbacks as they forge ahead towards progress.
Janvier Chouteu-Chando
#68. It's been by turns frustrating and fascinating and wonderful beyond imagination. If what I suspect is true, it's one of the most important milestones in human history to acknowledge that we are not alone in the universe.
Steven M. Greer
#69. We are at a major epoch in human history, which is that we don't need sex to recreate the race. You can have babies without sex. This is the first time in human history that has been true, and it means, for example, we could do some extraordinary things.
David Cronenberg
#70. History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction.
Voltaire
#71. There is a long history of monetary experience. It tells us that government is at heart a counterfeiter and therefore cannot be trusted to control money, and that this is true of both autocratic and popular government.
Garet Garrett
#72. All fairy tales, Tolkien argued, echo the gospel of Jesus Christ in some way because the gospel is the True Story; it's the real fairy tale that crashed into the time line of history... 'The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact,' Lewis wrote
Sarah Arthur
#73. True leadership will not be measured by the ability to muzzle dissent, or to intimidate and harass political opponents at home. The people of the world want change. They will not long tolerate those who are on the wrong side of history.
Barack Obama
#74. True holy war in human history has ceased because Jesus has fought its last episode on the cross.
Karen H. Jobes
#75. The evidence shows you that two things have been true throughout mankind's history: One, things always get better. Two, people always think they're getting worse.
Penn Jillette
#76. I've left Boro in the Premiership, which was always what I wanted to do. Actually that's not quite true. I took them to three cup finals, where they'd never been before. But I had set my eyes on being the first manager in their history to deliver a major trophy.
Bryan Robson
#77. How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah, is found, at so early a period of his history, a worshiper of baser objects, it is foreign to our present purpose to inquire.
Simon Greenleaf
#78. One forgets that part of one's performance is one's history - or sometimes the lack of it. You're playing against what an audience knows, what they expect. This seems to be true of all performers; there's baggage that gets carried into the venue that we can't see.
David Byrne
#79. Physics advances by accepting absurdities. Its history is one of unbelievable ideas proving to be true.
Rivka Galchen
#80. Reading history, one rarely gets the feeling of the true nature of scientific development, in which the element of farce is as great as the element of triumph.
David Gross
#81. History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat.
Rosa Luxemburg
#82. True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.
David O. McKay
#83. I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.
Saul Williams
#84. I believe that individuals nowadays are probably more aware of their inner loneliness than has ever been true before in history.
Carl R. Rogers
#85. Evolution has encountered no intellectual trouble; no new arguments have been offered. Creationism is a home-grown phenomenon of American sociocultural history-a splinter movement ... who believe that every word in the Bible must be literally true, whatever such a claim might mean.
Stephen Jay Gould
#86. Every believer is an anarchist at heart. True believers would rather see governments topple and history rewritten than scuff the cover of their faith.
Jeanette Winterson
#87. We must delve deep into history the better to engage a true dialogue of civilisations. Fear of the present can impose upon the past its own biased vision.
Tariq Ramadan
#88. There is an intimate connection between our moral life and our intellectual life. Sometimes I think the history of our times can be described as an argument about whether or not this connection is true.
James V. Schall
#89. If one religion were 'true,' we would expect to see, even if only once in all of recorded history, a religious missionary that had stumbled upon a culture that shared the same revelations - brought forth by the same deity.
David G. McAfee
#90. There is always a danger that those who are less obviously and traditionally important, prominent, or powerful will be left out of the history of human experience.
Chloe Schama
#91. The "called" get so puffed up with how important they think their service is to God's success, they assume God will compensate for their lack of parenting skills. A short study in sociological history will reveal this isn't true, never has been true, and likely never will be true of God.
Linda Rios Brook
#92. In any true life you must go and be exposed outside the small circle that encompasses two or three heads in the same history of love.
Saul Bellow
#93. Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true ... we call it history.
Gregory Maguire
#94. I just want to hear the true voices of women self-expressing - smart ones, stupid ones, ugly ones, beautiful ones, good ones, bad ones, fat ones, thin ones, all of it - until the profound silence that has resounded throughout history is filled with a healthy chorus coming from our side of the aisle.
Liz Phair
#95. History repeats itself, you sang. I wonder if that's true. If there's a hurt
that's buried in us, maybe it keeps fi nding its way through.
Ava Dellaira
#96. An artist has an obligation to tell the truth. [ ... ] that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters. (And the heroes too). Each of us has within himself the capacity for great good, and great evil.
George R R Martin
#97. British Statesman, parliamentary orator and political thinker, Edmund Burke once said, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." This is true to say the least.
Robert Paulson
#98. In my view, the gospels are true, not historically, but theologically, or, as I would argue, prophetically! What we have is, the Messiah's history written in advance in story form.
Eli Of Kittim
#99. The God of freedom, the true God, is ... not recognized by his power and glory in the history of the world, but through his helplessness and his death on the scandal of the cross of Jesus
Jurgen Moltmann
#100. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Reinhold Niebuhr
