History Quotes

"Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it."

"History is a set of lies agreed upon."

"In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been the church which has insisted that scientists should bow to the blindness of the mob."

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, so much as because its opponents eventually die."

"The first reactions to quantum theory were like the reactions to Darwin's theory of evolution."

"The early universe was like an enormous concentration camp."

"We have built a global civilization founded on science and technology."

"For most of human history, nobody could do much about their ancestors."

"We are products of history, and must learn to cherish the imperfections."

"To understand the past is to illuminate the present."

"History teaches us that predictions about the future are often wrong."

"The past is not prologue but a catalogue of contingencies."

"The history of evolution is not written but rewritten constantly."

"History shows us patterns without being predictive."

"History is written by the contingencies we rarely notice."

"The past is a foreign country that speaks to our present."

"History teaches us lessons we must not ignore."

"The history of science is a history of increasingly sophisticated questions asked of nature."

"The best way to predict the future is to understand the past."

"The greatest events in human history are often precipitated by small, seemingly insignificant acts."

"Every generation of scientists stands on the shoulders of those who came before, seeing farther because of their efforts."

"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into limbs for terrestrial creatures."

"We evolve in the context of our environment and history."

"The stratigraphic record preserves life's evolutionary narrative."

"Contingency, not inevitability, characterizes life's history."

"The past is not merely prologue; it is integral to understanding the present."

"The history of life is a story of triumphs and extinctions."

"Nations are not just physical entities but also intellectual and spiritual ones."

"The past can be understood only insofar as we understand the present."

"In every age there have been profound insights and also profound delusions."