“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”
Julian Barnes (1946) English writer
Source: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
Remarks by the President at the Dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/24/remarks-president-dedication-national-museum-african-american-history (24 September 2016) <br class="br">2016
“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”
Julian Barnes (1946) English writer
Source: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist
New millennium, An Interview with Paul A. Samuelson, 2003
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: We never get anywhere in this world without the forces of history and individual persons in the background helping us to get there. If you have the privilege of a fine education, well, you have it because somebody made it possible. If you have the privilege to gain wealth and a bit of the world’s goods, well, you have it because somebody made it possible. So don’t boast, don’t be arrogant. You, at that moment, rise out of your self-centeredness to the type of living that makes you an integrated personality.
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Speech to a joint session of the Dail and the Seanad, Dublin, Ireland (28 June 1963)
1963
John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
Non-Progress: The myth of modernisation (p. 174)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)
Qin Gang (1966) politician
Source: "Keynote Speech by Ambassador Qin Gang at the Commemoration for the 50th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s Visit to China" https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/202203/t20220303_10647768.html (25 February 2021)