History Quotes

"Understanding the past helps us create better futures."

"All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct."

"You have to know the past to understand the present."

"History teaches us lessons we often ignore."

"History teaches us lessons we ignore at our peril."

"The history of science shows us that our views on the nature of matter keep changing."

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

"If humanity does not explicitly remember and honor the past, we are condemned to repeat it."

"Wonderful life: the Burgess Shale and the nature of history teaches us that contingency shapes all existence."

"The history of life is not progress toward a goal but a branching bush with many endings."

"The history of life is not a ladder but a tree."

"The largest steps in human history have often been driven by accident and contingency."

"The fossil record is a chronicle of missed meetings and failed innovations."

"The history of life on Earth is a story of diversification, not linear progress."

"The extinction of the dinosaurs was an accident, not an inevitability."

"In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has always been the part of the Church to oppose the knowledge of nature in the scientific sense."

"To understand the present, we must know the past."

"History teaches us that progress is never linear but always worth pursuing."

"History teaches us that in periods of freedom, people tend to accumulate power and knowledge."

"History is the study of human nature."

"During the voyage of the Beagle I have thought very little about the origin of species."

"The Fuegians rank amongst the most extraordinary and curious people in the world."

"It must strike every one that the members of such an assemblage of authors are quite modern."

"To understand the present, one must study the past with meticulous care and scientific precision."

"The present day has not yet absorbed all of its past."

"The nuclear age began with the discovery of radioactivity."

"The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power."

"The invention of the wheel was perhaps the greatest achievement of man."

"Those who have not profited by the study of the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes."

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."