“History is the essence of innumerable biographies.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
On History.
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
Other
“History is the essence of innumerable biographies.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
On History.
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
“There is properly no history; only biography.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History
“The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity
“unloved women have no biographies-- they have histories”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
“Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Part 1, Chapter 23.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)
“Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe…”
H. G. Wells book The Outline of History
Source: The Outline of History (1920), Ch. 41
Context: Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe... Yet, clumsily or smoothly, the world, it seems, progresses and will progress.
Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Part I: Lost Letters (p. 22)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
Context: People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.