A lot of what we know to be history isn't…it serves a purpose. Events are exaggerated, heroes fabricated, goals are rewritten to appear more noble than they actually were. All to manipulate public...

The historian's task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and...

History is full of examples of men with deep - seated grievances who embraced good causes, in part at least, to settle old scores.

We are the middle children of history. Born too late to explore earth, born too early to explore space.

History is us squinting into the past, mistaking millions of tiny vibrations in all directions for unified, unidirectional movements by entire civilizations.

I run my finger along the crease of the envelope, feel the weight of history inside. Wherever I'm going next, these are coming with me.

I hope… that we are making China more interesting and less exotic to our Europeanist colleagues. Soon it may no longer suffice for historians of Europe to make mere polite bows in the direction of...

What is truly arresting about our kind is better captured in the story of the Tower of Babel, in which humanity, speaking a single language, came so close to reaching heaven that God himself felt...

God is gathering a small number of chosen people who will live at the edge of one time shifting to another time. These are the people who will make history

Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance.

So, what's the status?" said Ira as he pulled himself down to his couch. "Will is turning into a starship," Hugo replied, clearly only half in jest. "We're about to watch history in the making."

When history disappears, you disappear.

We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.

Who says history is stagnant? For a historian, facts do not change; it is the way we look at things, our interpretations, that are always changing. This is what makes history exciting - that we can...

Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell,...

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Like a lot of stupid people, it took a great deal to get an idea into the king's head, but once there, there was no shifting it.

When Rome was at the height of her glory and power, there appeared a disturbing sect called Christians. Because of a fire that burned within them, these people dared to be different . . . they refused...

Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians {and of Jews}. Within the context of...

Bread and Circuses

The world now understands the concept of a 'desk murderer.' We know that one doesn't need to be fanatical, sadistic, or mentally ill to murder millions; that it is enough to be a loyal follower eager...

But all these hints at foreseeing what actually did happen on the French as well as on the Russian side are only conspicuous now because the event has justified them. If the event had not come to...

It's not pretty, but it's veracious.

Mr. Watson - Come here - I want to see you.

Soiled, forgotten coats of arms were carved above their massive doorways, and these unsettled Ted: such universal, defining symbols made meaningless by nothing more than time.

Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.

Oppression has been in existence as long as man himself has been in existence.

Being doped is a pleasure you pay for. There was always opium there for the people — in the end it tainted their whole faith. If the Church had not always stood so watchfully behind the ruling...

History is the hallmark of humanity.