Happy is the nation without a history.

Happy is the nation without a history.

What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.

What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.

History's like a story in a way: it depends on who's telling it.

History's like a story in a way: it depends on who's telling it.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: read more

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim.".

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

I once asked my history teacher how we were expected to learn anything useful from his subject, when it seemed read more

I once asked my history teacher how we were expected to learn anything useful from his subject, when it seemed to me to be nothing but a monotonous and sordid succession of robber baron scumbags devoid of any admirable human qualities. I failed history.

The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.

The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.