“God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
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Сэмюэль Батлер1
1835–1902Related quotes
“Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it”
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
“Even God cannot change the past.”
Agathon (-448–-401 BC) Athenian tragic poet
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, sect. 2, 1139b.
Variant translation: Not even the gods can change the past.
Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) British economic historian
Source: Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884), p. 32
“To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.”
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
Prier Dieu c'est se flatter qu'avec des paroles on changera toute la nature.
Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
Citas
Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk
Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 201
“The past is the past. You cannot change it, but you can learn from it.”
Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist
“Historians may lie, but History cannot.”
George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic
Source: A Last Vintage, p. 172.
“As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes.”
Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale
Historical Notes (p. 311)
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Source: The Handmaid's Tale
Context: As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.