Quotes about history

But this was the eighteenth century, when life was cheap and ambition unlimited.

“I’m interested in history,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

“Why would a young man like you be interested in history?”

“So I can avoid repeating it.”

Most archaeology in London these days is rescue archaeology—projects designed to preserve as much as possible from the relentless cash-driven redevelopment. It’s not a new problem. Ask a medievalist about Victorian cellars or an Iron Age specialist about medieval ploughing—but take snacks, because you’re going to be there for a while.

Nightingale had taught me to be cautious of the early sources. “A great deal of it is accurate,” he said. “And a great deal is less so. Unfortunately it can be difficult to determine which is which.”

Reading sheds light on our dark path ahead. By traveling into the past, I enhance my grasp of the present.

History is the world’s most egotistical gossip.

And, as was so often the case, the history taught to children was oversimplified, watered down, and ofttimes counterfactual.

Nothing new has ever happened to a son of Adam, she said. Everything has already been lived and everything has already been told. If only we listened to the stories. (p52)

We are all inseparable from our times, whether we realize it or not.

Technicalities are, however, of more interest to historians than to contemporaries.

It can't be that bad. Surely it can't be that bad. There must be a way, only we can't see it yet. A way of making a space for ourselves where we can make the best of ourselves - we just can't quite see it yet. But things move on and by the time you've plotted your position the world around you has changed and you're running - panting to catch up. How can you think clearly when you're running? That is the beauty of the past; there it lies on the table: journals, pictures, a candle-glass, a few books of history. You leave it and come back to it and it waits for you - unchanged. You can turn back the pages, look again at the beginning. You can leaf forward and know the end. And you tell the story that they, the people who lived it, could only tell in part.

History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots.