“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
“The early history of the world is the history of a few great men. Their Wirkungskreis is immense—vaster than that of God himself.”
Private notes, quoted in Herbert Butterfield, ‘Acton: His Training, Methods and Intellectual System’, in A. O. Sarkissian (ed.), Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in honour of G. P. Gooch, C.H. (1961), p. 194
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John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton112
British politician and historian 1834–1902Related quotes
“The history of the world is the history of a privileged few.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist
Sunday after the war (1944), pub. New Directions.
John Lanahan (1815–1903)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 426.
“Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.”
James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)
Diary (4 February 1879)
1870s
“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”
Jorge Luis Borges book Other Inquisitions
"Pascal’s Sphere" ["La esfera de Pascal"] (1951)
Variant translations: Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.
It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.
Other Inquisitions (1952)
“Remember that the actions of a few, with commitment, can alter the course of world history.”
Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician
Address to Greenpeace, Suva, 10 July 2005.
Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy
Day of Affirmation Address (1966)
Variant: Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total — all of these acts — will be written in the history of this generation.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Speech on Afghanistan (4 January 1980) http://millercenter.org/president/carter/speeches/speech-3403 <br class="br">Presidency (1977–1981), 1978
“History is a vast early warning system.”
Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist
15 April 1978.
Saturday Review
“This is the reason that the inside of every world is so much vaster than the outside.”
R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer
Aeaea, Ch. 6
Space Chantey (1968)
Context: Do you not know that the underground lands are shared by many worlds? It is all one underground, a vast place, and it is but a trick on which globe one will surface on coming out. This is the reason that the inside of every world is so much vaster than the outside. You are fooled by the shape of these little balls on which things live and crawl; you see the universe inside out; you see the orbs as containing and not contained. I will teach you to see it right if you please me.