“You know the greatest lesson of history? It's that history is whatever the victors say it is. That's the lesson. Whoever wins, that's who decides the history.”

— Anthony Doerr , book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Anthony Doerr 55

American writer 1973

Max Lerner (1902–1992) American journalist and educator

It Is Later Than You Think: The Need for a Militant Democracy http://books.google.com/books?id=szVGoBq-dkEC&q=%22actually+The+so-called+lessons+of+history+are+for+the+most+part+the+rationalizations+of+the+victors+history+is+written+by+the+survivors%22&pg=PA255#v=onepage (1939)

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: " A Case of Voluntary Ignorance http://www.christiebooks.com/ChristieBooksWP/2013/11/a-case-of-voluntary-ignorance-by-aldous-huxley/" in Collected Essays (1959)

“The lesson of history is that no one learns.”

Steven Erikson book Deadhouse Gates

Source: Deadhouse Gates

“Four sentences summarizing the lessons of History”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

“Progress is man’s indifference to the lessons of history.”

Len Deighton book An Expensive Place to Die

An Expensive Place to Die, Jonathan Cape (1967) Ch. 39

““Let me explain to you,” the Horned One said, “the nature of history.”
“What?”
“The first thing you need to know is that history happens almost exclusively in the dark… Here is your second lesson: History is that which cannot be prevented… Here is your third and final lesson: History is simply life with all the bits any sane person might care to experience left out.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 14, “Dreadnought” (pp. 246-256; extracts from a long narrative passage)

“The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Letter to Professor Demmon (16 December 1871), in The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield (1881) by E. E. Brown, p. 424 http://books.google.com/books?id=vCAFAAAAYAAJ
1870s

“I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience.”

Zbigniew Herbert (1924–1998) Polish writer

Quoted by Michael Hamburger, in his book, The Truth of Poetry.
Quoes

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the proper recipe, invariably designated "the lesson of history."”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"All Right, Jerry, Drop the Cookbook" (p.47)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

“You know the greatest lesson of history? It's that history is whatever the victors say it is. That's the lesson. Whoever wins, that's who decides the history.”

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