Europeans Quote by Richard Flanagan

History is not the linear sort of movement toward better and better things.

— Ben H. Winters

Nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line.

— Barack Obama

“History fancies itself linear - but yields to a cyclical temptation.”

— Criss Jami

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

— Ibrahim Babangida

To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong.

— Vladimir Lenin

History is more or less bunk.

— Henry Ford

I did not say history was bunk. It was bunk to me . . I did not need it very bad.

— Henry Ford

We who have lived before railways were made belong to another world. It was only yesterday, but what a gulf between now and then!…

— William Makepeace Thackeray

History doesn't always move in a straight line. Sometimes it zigs and zags.

— Barack Obama

People take the longest possible paths, digress to numerous dead ends, and make all kinds of mistakes. Then historians come along and write summaries…

— Dean Kamen

We can't completely rely on the aberrations of history to explain today's European necessities. Future-related issues are no less pressing.

— Jean-Claude Juncker

“History works on a long time scale, and at any given moment we can perceive its directions but imperfectly.”

— Daniel Walker Howe