Michel Foucault Quotes

History takes time... History makes memory.

There's something very special about seeing history so clearly in front of you through that architecture that you just don't get in the U.S. If I was asked to choose where I'd most like to live, I would always choose London.

Never, ever forget history.

Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.

I think that America has an obsession with history, really.

We've got to map all of our ancient history before it's gone because, let's face it, if we don't have a common heritage to share, something to get excited about, then what are we living for?

With each passing decade, history becomes less real for us, less immediate and essential to our way of life, and so, like 'green' nature, more of a commodity or an advertising gimmick.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

Museums, I love museums.

If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

I really don’t make history; I preserve it.

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity

The statues are no big issue. They are only objects made of mud or stone.

If there was a day that history was not recorded, then the history of one hundred days would be in peril.

A lot of people may not read the history of their own country, but they carry on memories transmitted by previous generations. They're trying to achieve something, [they] have their mission and anger -- all this is fed by past experience of history.

We need the historian and philosopher to give us with trenchant pen, the story of our forefathers, and let our soul and body, with phosphorescent light, brighten the chasm that separates us. We should cling to them just as blood is thicker than water.

History is the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.

Stories are one of the means by which a culture preserves its identity.

History is dependent on the new generation to write a new chapter.

Washington and Lincoln mean as much to us as any two men could mean to a civilization, a people, and age, but I told Mr. Coolidge when he dedicated this monument that this rock is being carved with a monument that will outlive our government.

If we do not honor our past, we lose our future. If we destroy our roots, we cannot grow.

The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.

I think the history and the past we have is just an energy we've built up to do what we do now.

For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.