Impact of History Quotes

The power of the past does not depend on our knowledge of it.

Today, I don't believe in destiny. But I do believe in history...There's nothing more powerful than history.

It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir.

Maybe that's what history is, you go from one I can't believe it the next. And sometimes the I can't believe its are good, and sometimes they're bad. But the sum total of positive ones always outweighs the negative ones.

The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.

THE PRICE grew out of a need to reconfirm the power of the past, the seedbed of current reality, and the way to possibly reaffirm cause and effect in an insane world.

Historical knowledge is indispensable for those who want to build a better world

History knew the truth. History was the most inhuman product of humanity.It scooped up the whole of human will and, like the goddess Kali in Calcutta, dripped blood from its mouth as it bit and crunched.

History is the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instructor of the present, and monitor to the future.

The power of the past to still dominate our thinking today.

History is nothing except monsters or victims. Or witnesses.

Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility.

The thing that most haunted me that day, however...was the fact that these things had - apparently - actually occurred...For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away.

Your past always leads to who you are.

In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God--who knows all that can be known--seems powerless to change.

History dies without the present. There is no future without the path made to it by the past.

We all of us live upon the past, and through the past we are destroyed.

I like to show what happens to people in the past and how it affects their present.

History is weirdly dismissed as not having anything to do with the present moment.

I’m a big fan of history—applying the lessons as well as the joys and sadness. If we pay attention, we would see how we affect each other. In terms of time, we are not that far from one another. If we were to look back a century, it would seem like a long time; but, if we look at it by decades then it’s only 10 years, and by generations it’s only five.

Being connected with individual lives reminds us in the most basic way of the human face of history. Too often we forget how significant the lives of ordinary people are.

And history's fingers never relax their grip, never leave us unmolested, can touch us even when we would never imagine their presence.