Top 1200 Great Historical Quotes & Sayings

If you're playing the a historical character that's in the public consciousness, then obviously you've got to make an effort to look like that person and there's a huge amount of historical record there that you have to kind of comply to.

If you make a determination that [story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac] is not historical, do you throw it away? I don't think we can say whether it's precisely, scientifically historical.

I'm a big fan of historical fiction stuff. Historical battles - 'Gladiators,' 'The Patriot.'

Yes, Socialists should defend their country in great historical crises.

Historical fiction is not history. You're blending real events and actual historical personages with characters of your own creation.

In the same way that I've no desire to live in earlier historical periods, I never touch historical recipes. Most historical cooking is detestable.

You can't believe anything that's written in an historical novel, and yet the author's job is always to create a believable world that readers can enter. It's especially so, I think, for writers of historical fiction.

I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.

The blurring of fact and fiction has great commercial potential, which is bound to be corrupting in historical terms.

The great thing about really heightened historical dramas is that they can convey much larger themes.

I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. That's a good thing.

It is easy to see, though it scarcely needs to be pointed out, since it is involved in the fact that Reason is set aside, that faith is not a form of knowledge; for all knowledge is either a knowledge of the eternal, excluding the temporal and historical as indifferent, or it is pure historical knowledge. No knowledge can have for its object the absurdity that the eternal is the historical.

What distinguishes the historical social system we are calling historical capitalism is that in this historical system capital came to be used (invested) in a very special way. It came to be used with the primary objective or intent of self-expansion. In this system, past accumulations were 'capital' only to the extend they were used to accumulate more of the same.

There is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.

Even if people tell me they have historical proof [that it is not historical], that doesn't really bother me.

One of my great passions is the collection of historical trivia.

Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.

If you're writing something that's clearly labelled as an alternative history, of course it's perfectly legitimate to play with known historical characters and events, but less so when you're writing an essentially straight historical fiction.

It could be sci-fi, love story, historical drama what counts for me is the fact that they're made by great directors with a great point of view who bring the audience to be elevated and at the same time entertained. That's what cinema is.

Hitler's historical hero had always been Frederick the Great. [Later], under Goebbels' prompting ... Napoleon emerged ... as his model. .... Frederick the Great was a man who knew when to stop [and] Napoleon did not.

There is a great silver lining to the 45th presidency, which is, it's hard to swallow that he is existing, which gives us the silver lining, which is a great uncovering of the historical disenfranchisement and marginalization of so many people in this country for so long.

It was clear to me that the forms of consciousness of our inherited and acquired historical education - aesthetic consciousness and historical consciousness - presented alienated forms of our true historical being.

I think that technology is always invented for historical reasons, to solve a historical problem. But they very soon reveal themselves to be capable of doing things that aren't historical that nobody had ever thought of doing before.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

As much as I care about historical context - I'm very eager to read a really great historical account.

In my work, there's mechanism that is "real," which is formed from the historical concepts of the images that I'm working with. That doesn't fall completely into a cliché. There are elements about it that carry historical context and edges.

Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces.

It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.

In writing my historical novels, I have to rely upon my imagination to a great extent. I think of it as 'filling in the blanks.' Medieval chroniclers could be callously indifferent to the needs of future novelists. But I think there is a great difference between filling in the blanks and distorting known facts.

I write novels, mostly historical ones, and I try hard to keep them accurate as to historical facts, milieu and flavor.

Juventus is an historical club, and many great players have played there.

As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen.

We have gotten away from this double aspect of either putting the character back into historical events or of making a historical event of his very life.

The Great American Outdoors Act is a significant opportunity to invest in our public lands, including treasures in the 11th District like the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and Morristown National Historical Park.

Tattooing is historical, cultural and a great form of art but it should always be safe for both the client and the tattoo practitioner.

If you're playing a historical character that's in the public consciousness, then obviously you've got to make an effort to look like that person and there's a huge amount of historical record there that you have to kind of comply to.

The Renaissance is studded by the names of the artists and architects, with their creations recorded as great historical events.

....the popular music of Jamaica, the music of the people, is an essentially experiential music, not merely in the sense that the people experience the music, but also in the sense that the music is true to the historical experience, that the music reflects the historical experience. It is the spiritual expression of the historical experience of the Afro-Jamaican.

It's so damn hard to write a great historical mystery based on fact. It's not for lack of trying.

I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

Writing historical novels can be dangerous. We need to be as accurate and as fair about the historical record as we can be, at the same time as creating our fictional characters and, hopefully, telling a good story. The challenge is weaving the fiction into the history.

The four great motives for writing prose are sheer egoism, esthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose.

One of the great things about history is that it sort of isn't a done deal - ever. The historical texts and the historical evidence that you use is always somehow giving you different answers because you're asking it different questions.

My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.

In 'Labor Day Hurricane, 1935,' Douglas Trevor vividly recreates a historical event. While that is the only story in A THIN TEAR IN THE FABRIC OF SPACE in the historical past, many of the other stories juxtapose fact-both historical and scientific-with narration to an engaging effect, one that distinguishes the voice of this new writer.

Without doubt, President [Barack] Obama is a great historical figure.

A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind.

The story in that particular spot was an ancient history story, and we wanted to give it a historical feeling, which was why we used a historical calligraphy scroll come to life.

Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context.

I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything - I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it's like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that's what they were doing; it's like a message from another culture.

Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.

Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than thatsomething has occurred.

A hard Brexit would be so damaging to the true interests of the UK that what might follow - if we are lucky - is a great unmasking, not just of the political fantasists and chancers who peddled the great Brexit swindle, but of the historical delusion that empowered them.

With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right.

I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.

My books fall in the wobbly middle between historical fiction and historical romance.

Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own.

I'm not a great reader of historical fiction; it's not my favourite genre.

When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible, and in particular not to misrepresent the view they held. With a real historical figure you have to be fair, and this is not an obligation you have in dealing with your own creations, so it is quite different.