Historical Quotes

“You do what you are”

— Glynn Burridge

The midwife of history is violence.

— Franz Joseph I of Austria

I just love historical fiction.

— Jennifer Donnelly

Idleness only leads to bad deeds

— Magnus Stenbock

Judaism is an historical religion.

— Moses Hess

Without stones there is no arch

— Marco Polo

The new European Soviet.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I will be a historical painter.

— William Allan

I'm a huge historical fiction and non-fiction fan,

— Gale Anne Hurd

I cannot look at modern buildings without thinking of historical ones.

— Kevin McCloud

“Archive material is vital to the writer of historical fiction.”

— Sara Sheridan

As an historical novelist – there are few jobs more retrospective.

— Sara Sheridan

“Were ye sent by the fairy folk? Do no' lie to me.”

— Amy Jarecki

I don't write fantasy; I write historical novels about an imaginary place.

— Raymond E. Feist

My instinct is to write under the cloak of an opaque historical setting.

— Patrick deWitt

Abigail Adams could become my favorite historical sleuth.

— Sharon Kay Penman

The bases for historical knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in the guise of wars…

— Anonymous

I believe it has been said that one copy of The Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical…

— Richard Cobden

The battle is fought and decided by the quartermasters, long before the shooting begins.

— Erwin Rommel

Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal.

— Janet Reno

I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust.

— Ban Ki-moon

[It is] a historic step toward eliminating the shameful practice of racial discrimination in the selection of juries.

— Thurgood Marshall

There is no greater advocate of perestroika than the president of the United States.

— George H. W. Bush

All the historical elements should feel organic to the story but not hammered down to serve a purpose.

— Amor Towles

We will be returning to historical levels of inequality. We'll view post-war America as a kind of strange interlude not to be…

— Tyler Cowen

Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth,’ but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence.…

— F. F. Bruce

The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require…

— David Brooks

When I was seven years old, I fell in love with a series published by Bobbs-Merrill called 'The Childhood of Famous Americans.'…

— Ann Hood

Christendom is not primarily a mental construct. It is above all a fact, indeed the longest historical experience the Church has had.…

— Gustavo Gutiérrez

Herschel Grynszpan's life was enigmatic, elusive and tragic. The traces he left on the historical record are just sufficient to tantalize and…

— Janette Turner Hospital

Baseball may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper…

— Evan Bayh

Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your…

— Michael Ventura

Scientific practice is above all a story-telling practice. ... Biology is inherently historical, and its form of discourse is inherently narrative. ...…

— Donna J. Haraway

Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also…

— David Rockefeller

We never ask candidates to demonstrate their skill. We ask lots of questions about past experience, but simply looking at the results…

— Justin Menkes

The key for me with historical characters is they're interesting because they're human beings. A little bit of Hemingway goes a long…

— Michael Hirst

The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his…

— Paul Feyerabend

True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and…

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty

As a journalist, I would talk to writers, directors, creative people, and discover that for an awful lot of them, the moment…

— Neil Gaiman

When I think about what really matters, it's not looking at art that has made the most difference or has been most…

— W. S. Di Piero