Read through the most famous quotes by topic #history
What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did. ↗
It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world would occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing with the same set of facts. -Bill Vaughan, journalist (1915-1977) ↗
I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian. ↗
The willingness to undertake such action cannot be based on certainties, but on those possibilities glimpsed in a reading of history different from the customary painful recounting of human cruelties. In such a reading we can find not only war but resistance to war, not only injustice but rebellion against injustice, not only selfishness but self-sacrifice, not only silence in the fact of tyranny but defiance, not only callousness but compassion. Human beings show a broad spectrum of qualities, but it is the worst of these that are usually emphasized, and the result, too often, is to dishearten us, diminish our spirit. And yet, historically, that spirit refuses to surrender. ↗
What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race? ↗
Ari: The serial number was now my new name. I was dehumanized. I was branded like an animal, but was treated worse. This is what racism can do to people. ↗
Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history. ↗
What history can do is show that people have to take responsibility for what they activate out of their tradition. It’s not just a given thing one slavishly follows. You have to be accountable. ↗