Looking for the most inspirational quotes about history? We have rounded up the best collection of history quotes, sayings, captions, and messages (with images and pictures) about preserving history, traditions, culture, customs, beliefs, historical architecture, and more to inspire you.
Also See: Heritage Quotes
History is the study of people, actions, decisions, interactions, and behaviors. It covers all aspects of human society, be it social, political, economic, scientific, technological, medical, cultural, intellectual, religious, and military developments are all part of history.
Studying history allows us to observe and understand how people and societies behaved.
Knowing the past has a huge impact on human behavior and analyzing the mistakes to learn from them.
Historical events help us understand how the past made things the way they are today and in the future.
Also See: History Repeats Itself Quotes
The importance of studying and knowing history is very important because knowledge of the past offers new perspectives about the present, and studying history gives us deeper insight into our lives and the lives of others.
These inspirational history proverbs and history matters quotes and sayings will give you deep and wise insight into the significance of history in our present lives.
Top History Quotes About Ancient Times
- “History is not was, it is.” – William Faulkner
quotes about learning from history
- “History is a relay of revolutions.” – Saul Alinsky
- “History is philosophy teaching by examples.” – Thucydides
- “If you think you have it tough, read history books.” – Bill Maher
- “History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.” – Will Durant
- “History gets thicker as it approaches recent times.” – A.J.P. Taylor
- “You have to know the past to understand the present.” – Carl Sagan
quotes about history
- “History is the story of events, with praise or blame.” – Cotton Mather
- “The main thing is to make history, not to write it.” – Otto von Bismarck
- “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” – Edmund Burke
history quotes
- “People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.” – James Baldwin
- “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.” – Lord Acton
- “A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.” – Robert A. Heinlein
- “History’s like a story in a way: it depends on who is telling it.” – Dorothy Salisbury Davis
- “History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.” – Johan Huizinga
- “History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- “He who puts out his hand to stop the wheel of history will have his fingers crushed.” – Lech Walesa
- “The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.” – Elizabeth Cady Stanton
- “History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
- “You don’t change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.” – Jawaharlal Nehru
- “No volume of history is insignificant, even the worst chapters. Especially the worst chapters.” – Terri Guillemets
- “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey
- “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou
- “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” – George Orwell
- “History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” – David McCullough
- “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ” – Michael Crichton
- “The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history?” – Katharine Anthony
- “History is the action and reaction of these two, nature and thought – two boys pushing each other on the curbstone of the pavement.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity.” – Dexter Perkins
Inspirational Quotes About History
- “History is a story written by the finger of God.” – C.S. Lewis
- “History is a vast early warning system.” – Norman Cousins
- “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” – Mark Twain
- “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Human history, in essence, is the history of ideas.” – H. G. Wells
- “To remain ignorant of history is to remain forever a child.” – Cicero
quote on history
- “Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- “Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” – Oscar Wilde
Famous History Quotes
- “History is information. Memory is part of your identity.” – David Miliband
- “History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory.” – George Santayana
- “History can bring luck: this is what we can call optimism.” – Stephane Hessel
- “History is nothing if not an epic tale of missed opportunities.” – Graydon Carter
- “History never looks like history when you are living through it.” – John W. Gardner
- “History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.” – Konrad Adenauer
- “No other discipline has its portals so wide open to the general public as history.” – Johan Huizinga
- “History is a symphony of echoes heard and unheard. It is a poem with events as verses.” – Charles Angoff
- “History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.” – Etienne Gilson
Best History Quotes For Students
- “The best prophet of the future is the past.” – Lord Byron
- “The duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” – Oscar Wilde
- “Study the past if you would define the future.” – Confucius
Inspirational Quotes About History
- “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
- “God cannot alter the past, though historians can.” – Samuel Butler
- “Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.” – Edward R. Murrow
- “Knowledge of history frees us to be contemporary.” – Lynn White, Jr.
- “History, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” – James Joyce
- “We learn from history that we don’t learn from history!” – Desmond Tutu
- “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” – Winston S. Churchill
- “And the whole world watched, and history remembered.” – Casey McQuiston
- “History gives answers only to those who know how to ask questions.” – Hajo Holborn
- “When history fails to shed light on the truth, myth creates its own.” – Samantha Shannon
- “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” – Winston Churchill
- “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
- “The historian has been the hearth at which the soul of the country has been kept alive.” – John Morley
Historical Quotes By Famous Historians
- “History is an argument without end.” – Pieter Geyl, Dutch historian (1887-1966)
- “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” – David McCullough, American historian (1933- )
- “We are a day away from making history, and a history towards the breaking of tomorrow.” – Anthony Liccione
- “[The historian is] an unsuccessful novelist.” – H. L. Mencken, American journalist and satirist (1880-1956)
- “If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday.” – Pearl S. Buck, American novelist (1892-1973)
- “Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.” – Edward Hallett Carr, British historian (1892-1982)
- “History is the study of all the world’s crime.” – Voltaire, French writer and philosopher (1694-1778)
- “The historian must serve two masters: the past and the present.” – Fritz Stern, German-American historian (1926- )
- “Historians are themselves the products of history.” – Paul Conkin and Roland Stromberg, American historians
- “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, American philosopher (1863-1952)
- “Perhaps nobody has changed the course of history as much as the historians.” – Franklin P. Jones, American journalist (1908-1980)
- “Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.” – Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer and philosopher (1828-1910)
History Quotes To Learn From The Past
- “History is Storytelling.” – Yaa Gyasi
- “Our history is not our destiny.” – Alan Cohen
- “History is a symptom of our disease.” – Mao Tse-tung
- “History is written by the victors.” – Winston Churchill
- “Human history is a Gaian dream.” – Terence McKenna
- “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” – Karl Marx
history quotes images
- “If you want a present different from the past, study the past.” – Baruch Spinoza
- “The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.” – Richard M. Nixon
- “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” – Harry S. Truman
- “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” – H. G. Wells
- “I know history. There are many names in history but none of them are ours.” – Richard Siken
- “The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.” – Franz Kafka
- “The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.” – A. Whitney Brown
- “The lack of a sense of history is the damnation of the modern world.” – Robert Penn Warren
Best History Captions
- Let’s make some history.
- History doesn’t repeat itself. But it does rhyme.
- Archaeologists make it fun to learn about the past.
- History matters. Visit museums, battlefields, and parks.
- The only way to go back in time is to not watch the clock.
- History has its eyes on you. You’re going to do great things.
- Sip your way back in time with the flavors of ancient Rome.
- History has been made over a round of drinks. Let’s light up the conversation.
- Let’s go where we can talk about history and laughter—it all passes so quickly.
- History feels like a fading dream to me. Memory a mist, almost always unreal.
- Whether you wrote it, lived it or dreamt it, there’s so much history in every sip.
- History capitalizes on your love for travel and nostalgia by transporting you to other places in time.
- History is worth a second look. Our newspapers from 100 years ago need new homes, and you can help.
More Inspirational Quotes
As quoted by Dalai Lama; “We cannot change the past, but we can reshape the future. Young people have the opportunity to create a happier, better future.”
So learning and studying historical events is imperative for students, teachers, and people to learn from the past and not repeat the faults of ancient times.
Humankind and race have come a long way, and our ancestors have done things that were great and legendary.
To know all about the ancient world and its culture knowing your history is the foundation for building a great future.
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