The second day of July1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. It ought to be solemnised with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the otheröfrom this time forward, for ever more.

-Adams,John
  Letter to his wife, 3  Jul, on the vote of Congress for independence from Britain.

She†happens tostickout a foot just as history isrushing by.

-Adler,Jerry
  Of Fawn Hall, the secretary who helped Col Oliver North to dispose of top-secret papers,'the archetype of the  Accidental Celebrity'. In Newsweek, 9 Mar.

Happy is the country which has no history, and happier still is that musical comedyabout which one can find nothing to say.

-Agate,James
  In the Sunday Times.

In the United States today we have more than our fair share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own Four H Cluböthe hopeless, hysterical, hypochondriacs of history.

-Agnew, SpiroT(heodore)
  Of media pundits. Speech, San Diego,11 Sep.

More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

-Allen,Woody pseudonym of  Allen Stewart Konigsberg
  Side Effects,'My Speech to the Graduates'.

The Master: records prove the title good: Yet figures fail you, for they cannot say How many men whose names you never knew Are proud to tell their sons they saw you play. They share the sunlight of your summer day Of thirty years; and they, with you, recall How, through those well-wrought centuries, your hand Reshaped the history of bat and ball.

-Aristotle
  'To  John Berry Hobbs on his Seventieth Birthday'.

Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Literature and Dogma, preface.

The stars are dead. The animals will not look: We are left alone with our day, and the time is short, and History to the defeated May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  Spain.

Political history isfar too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young.Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  A Certain World.

But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in†it tells me nothing that does not vex or weary me†the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.

-Austen,Jane
  Northanger Abbey, vol.1, ch.14.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  The Advancement of Learning, bk.2, ch.2, section1.

California's power to cloud men's minds must never be Baldwin forgot.Under its spell we submitted foreight yearstothe governance of Ronald Reagan, who had trouble distinguishing history from old movie plots.

-Baker, Russell Wayne
  'Don't Look Back', in the NewYork Times,1  Aug.

Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.

-Barnes,Julian Patrick
  A History of the World in101    Chapters,'Parenthesis'.

The only real distinction at this dangerous moment in human historyand cosmic development has nothing to do with medals and ribbons. Not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is mere popcorn.

-Bellow, Saul
  Humboldt's Gift.

History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side.

-Betjeman, SirJohn
  First and Last Loves.

History, n. An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

-Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett
  The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled  The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

Quiza¤   la historia universal es la historia de la diversa entonacio¤ n  de algunas meta¤  foras. It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

-Borges,Jorge Luis
  Otras inquisiciones,'La esfera de Pascal' (translated as The Fearful Sphere of Pascal,1964).

Science†is so greatly opposed to history and tradition that it cannot be absorbed by our civilization.

-Born, Max
  My Life and Views.

English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.

-Bradbury, Malcolm Stanley
  Stepping Westward, bk.2, ch.5.

To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history† Who would not rather have been the good thief than Pilate?

-Browne, SirThomas
  Hydriotaphia (Urn Burial), ch.5.