"One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact."

History, Fact, Opinion, Public

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"One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact."

Exlpore more History quotes

"The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever."

Paulo Coelho, Brazilian Novelist

History, Change, Idea, Ownership, Past

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion."

Arthur C. Clarke, English Writer

History, Religion, Morality, Mankind

"They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion."

Ambrose Bierce, American Journalist

History, Death, Decay, Memory

"There was something melancholic about that symbol of their nation's promise of freedom, a bell with a chipped mouth and cleft body."

E.A. Bucchianeri, American Author

History, Symbolism, Patriotism, Emotion

"The United States was born in the country and moved to the city in the nineteenth century."

Anonymous, Unknown Unknown

History, Country, City, America

"This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors."

Winston Churchill, English Statesman

History, War, Honor, Service, Humanity

"The past is not a package one can lay away."

Emily Dickinson, American Poet

History, Past, Memory, Time

"The double-crossed, might-have-been history of my country is not the study of what actually took place here: it's the study of historians' studies. . . .Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present."

David Mitchell, British Novelist

History, Memory, Study, Truth

"The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just and when they wish to be just they are no longer strong."

Winston Churchill, English Statesman

History, Power, Justice, Strength

"An important part of what the state does is preserving its history."

James R. Thompson, American Politician

History, State

Explore more quotes by Alfred de Vigny

"The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch."

Character

"From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see more than himself and nature, which surrounds him; but he created it true with a truth all its own."

Nature

"France, for example, loves at the same time history and the drama, because the one explores the vast destinies of humanity, and the other the individual lot of man."

History

"Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?"

Evil

"Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?"

Life

"We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements."

Age

"No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and yearnings of the human heart."

Heart

"But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity."

Poetry

"Just as we descend into our consciences to judge of actions which our minds can not weigh, can we not also search in ourselves for the feeling which gives birth to forms of thought, always vague and cloudy?"

Thought

"Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?"

Literature