Allen C. Guelzo Quotes

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.

If history starts as a guest list, it has a tendency to end like the memory of a drunken party: misheard, blurred, fragmentary.

History is a battleground... but it has always been the case. Remembering is a radical act. Choosing what is important and what belongs in the overstuffed metaphorical dustbin of history is of vital importance.

History is an instrument of the most genuine patriotic spirit

We often do not get the first draft of history right.

No two historians offer precisely the same reading of an historical event; if we did, far fewer articles and books would be published.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.

History is, in its essence, exciting; to present it as dull is, to my mind, stark and unforgivable misrepresentation.

People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.

Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.

History is more or less bunk.

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.

Of course history is easily manipulated - though that makes it even more important for us to know what actually happened.

History is a way of interpreting, rather than, say, knowing, the past. It is usually a set of disputes between those who have access to the same sources. It depends on ideology as much as voting in an election does.

The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.

History is, of course, a made thing. It does not exist by itself in anything like a recognizable form.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

There is no such thing as a final draft of history.

When you revise history, you lose it.

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. This is what makes the trade of historian so attractive.

The history of this country is told by showing people who have contributed to it.

History is too serious to be left to historians.