What is history?

Frumundah Finnatic · May 25, 2009

I dont know if you guys have seen these before but its a collection of quotes from several famous people that give their own definition of history.

"'History,' Stephen said, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.'" James Joyce

"Since history has no properly scientific value, its only purpose is educative. And if historians neglect to educate the public, if they fail to interest it intelligently in the past, then all their historical learning is valueless except in so far as it educates themselves." G. M. Trevelyan.

"To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a great civilization present a different picture. In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which have served for my work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead to essentially different conclusions." Jacob Burckhardt

"History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illuminates reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life, and brings us tidings of antiquity." Cicero

"The past is useless. That explains why it is past." Wright Morris

"Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes." Francis Parkman

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

"There is properly no history; only biography." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid." Livy

"What experience and history teach is this-that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." G. W. F. Hegel
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EDIT: Opps I forgot to add the link

http://www.historyguide.org/history.html

sking29 · May 25, 2009

"The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid." Livy
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That is my personal philosophy on the importance of history.

gafinfan · May 25, 2009

"Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes." Francis Parkman
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This quote states my position to a tee! If only historians could pull this off without allowing themselves becoming personal the truth of history would have a much better chance to come shinging thru to the student of that history. What we end up with though is a judgement of Character and thus lose sight of the very lessons that History could teach us JMHO.:yes:

sking29 · May 25, 2009

gafinfan said:

This quote states my position to a tee! If only historians could pull this off without allowing themselves becoming personal the truth of history would have a much better chance to come shinging thru to the student of that history. What we end up with though is a judgement of Character and thus lose sight of the very lessons that History could teach us JMHO.:yes:
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I thought of you when I read that. :up:

Still I think though character judgments can be made because somethings are universally and timelessly wrong. :yes:

gafinfan · May 25, 2009

sking29 said:

I thought of you when I read that. :up:

Still I think though character judgments can be made because somethings are universally and timelessly wrong. :yes:
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Yes I agree that wrong is always wrong but to hold that wrongness up to a different/later standard colors that wrong making it a different or an unheard of wrong or even right in the eyes of those at that later date. Would you not agree? If not, why not?

If one is to judge another's character of a different time is not that person running the risk of being totally wrong themselves? And when I say this I'm not thinking of reingauging you in the WONA.:wink2:

Lets think the 14th amendment here and the person responsible!!:yes:

Or even better Native Americans and their worth to our country.:up:

Frumundah Finnatic · May 25, 2009

a few more for you guys

http://www.thinkexist.com/English/Topic/x/Topic_357_1.htm

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Thomas Jefferson quotes

There is a history in all men's lives.

William Shakespeare quotes

History is fables agreed upon.

Voltaire quotes

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.

Robert Heinlein quotes

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

George Bernard Shaw quotes
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Frumundah Finnatic U Mad Miami?

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sking29 What it takes to be cool

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Frumundah Finnatic U Mad Miami?

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