Acknowledgements
Twain does not quote Herodotus here, he only sums up what he believes to have been Herodotus' approach to the writing of history. Nevertheless, this apocryphal statement is now often quoted as being the very words of Herodotus.
A Horse's Tale (1907)
Herodotus (-484–-425 BC) ancient Greek historian, often considered as the first historian
This statement is not to be found in the works of Herodotus. It appears in the acknowledgements to Mark Twain's A Horse's Tale (1907) preceded by the words "Herodotus says", but Twain was simply summarizing what he took to be Herodotus' attitude to historiography.
Misattributed
“The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened.”
Lucian (120) ancient Greek writer
Sect. 39; vol. 2, p. 128; H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (trans.) The Works of Lucian of Samosata.
How to Write History
“Unless you do the right things, the right things will not happen to you.”
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer
Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 8, “The Green and the White” (p. 393)
Christopher Haskins (1937) British politician
Criticising European food safety laws; as quoted in City AM, Fri 15 Feb 2013 p. 23
“I am having a very difficult time. Things happen unexpectedly.”
Kōki Hirota (1878–1948) Japanese politician executed
Quoted in "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire" - Page 49 - by John Toland - History - 2003.
“When things get bad enough, then something happens to correct the course.”
Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine
The Open Mind interview (1985)
Context: When things get bad enough, then something happens to correct the course. And it's for that reason that I speak about evolution as an error-making and an error-correcting process. And if we can be ever so much better — ever so much slightly better — at error correcting than at error making, then we'll make it.
