Quotes About History
The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. - Milan Kundera
Believe me when I tell you, anybody who strives to achieve anything meaningful in life eventually finds her or himself standing alone — sometimes grappling with feelings of self-doubt, sometimes wondering if it’s all worth it. Well it is. - Jolanda Jones
… history is full of the errors of states and princes. - Benjamin Franklin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. p. 103
Whatever separates the novelist and the historian, we share the storyteller’s craft. But as historians, our purpose goes beyone retelling, or speaking through the documents themselves. We are after the conditions of the story’s telling, its fashioning, circulation and entangling with other stories and texts; we want to learn how the story worked more deeply on contemporary sensibilities.” - James Epstein, “Politics of Colonial Sensation: The Trial of Thomas Picton and the Cause of Louisa Calderon,” in The American Historical Review, 112, 3, June 2007.