Quotes & Sayings About Studying History

To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical events. The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting what is not essential. — Adolf Hitler

Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination. — Eckhart Tolle

You can't stay in the library all day!" I hiss, sitting next to him.
"This is a school. Studying is encouraged."
"What exactly are you studying?"
He folds the paper and gives me his cat grin. "History students. — Kiersten White

Studying the world's oldest writing for the first time compels you to wonder about what writing is and how it came about more than five thousand years ago and what the world might have looked like without it.

Writing as I would define it serves to record language by means of an agreed set of symbols that enable a message to be played back like a wax cylinder recording.

The reader's eye runs over the signs and tells the brain how each is pronounced and the inner message springs into life. — Irving Finkel

As John Adams famously wrote during the American Revolution, "I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain." So maybe today they're writing apps rather than studying poetry, but that's an adjustment for the age. — Fareed Zakaria

Why should each generation be brought up on the selective prejudices of the one before it? I believe that this is exactly the point of history. And not just reading or studying history but also approaching it with a sceptical bent of mind. When each generation approaches received wisdom with scepticism, perhaps it will reassess established notions of right and wrong, love and hate. Perhaps it will finally see mistaken priorities for what they really are. Perhaps it will do something that previous generations steadfastly refused to do. — Sidin Vadukut

I have always said to young artists that scholastic training and the studying of art history are crucial to fully developing as an artist. — LeRoy Neiman

Apparently, I was taking U.S. History again this year, which was the only history taught at Jackson, making the name redundant. I would be spending my second consecutive year studying the "War of Northern Aggression" with Mr. Lee, no relation. But as we all knew, in spirit Mr. Lee and the famous Confederate general were one and the same. Mr. Lee was one of the few teachers who actually hated me. Last year, on a dare from Link, I had written a paper called "The War of Southern Aggression," and Mr. Lee had given me a D. Guess the teachers actually did read the papers sometimes, after all. — Kami Garcia

Robert Heinlein says in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel that the only things worth studying are history, languages, and science. Actually, he adds maths, but honestly they left out the mathematical part of my brain. — Jo Walton

If it turns out that all this time we have merely been studying the programming of a cosmic planetarium, then that would merely mean that we have been studying a smaller portion of reality than we thought. So what? Such things have happened many times in the history of science, as our horizons have expanded beyond the Earth to include the solar system, our Galaxy, other galaxies, clusters of galaxies and so on, and, of course, parallel universes. — David Deutsch

As I look back on it now, it's obvious that studying history and philosophy was much better preparation for the stock market than, say, studying statistics. — Peter Lynch

After analyzing our current crisis and studying well-established
historical precedents, I must conclude that the global bankers have
only three possible cards left to play.
The first is admitting culpability and working to restore the
American economic engine to its free-market potential. History has
taught us that the ruling class rarely admits error and never concedes
power.
The second is to foment so much civil unrest and fear that the
general population will be clamoring for a global dictator who will
provide them food, shelter, and security in exchange for their individual
freedom and sovereignty. I see the emerging militancy of the
labor union movement playing right into this scenario.
The final play is global conflict where they can try and control
the outcome by means of funding both sides. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

When I'd headed out here on my wedding day, I hadn't realized I'd bought a ticket to my own history, a different one from studying Akh-en-aten and Horizon-of-the-Aten, maybe, but a living, ongoing one. — Ann Howard Creel

Have you thought about studying psychology, Kyle?" he asked.
"I plan to get my PhD in that. To get my PhD in art history just seems so ... useless. I study art and its history every second of every day. I mean, when you think about it ... I'm art history in the making. But a PhD in psychology would allow me to understand my enemies so I can destroy them and their careers before they get in my way."
Cherise leaned over and whispered in Coop's ear, "If he starts wondering about the taste of human flesh, you do understand we will have to stop him before his murder spree begins?"
"I'm more worried," Cooper whispered back, "that he'll become ruling overlord of the universe and we'll have to find some kind of magic sword if we hope to destroy him."
They both shuddered and returned to their work. — Shelly Laurenston

I've worked with more than 50 directors and I've paid attention since day one. That's pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I've seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving. — Tommy Lee Jones

After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history — Josh McDowell

Not only the studying and writing of history but also the honoring of it both represent affirmations of a certain defiant faith a desperate, unreasoning faith, if you will but faith nevertheless in the endurance of this threatened world faith in the total essentiality of historical continuity. — George F. Kennan

Cancer is not something confined to human beings. It's found in all multi cellular organisms where the adult cells proliferate, so it's widespread in the biosphere. It's a phenomenon that is deeply related to the history of life itself, so by studying cancer I think we can illuminate the history of life itself and vice versa. — Paul Davies

Ever since studying in Russia as a college student, I had been in a long-distance, one-sided love affair with Chechnya's remarkable history, culture and rugged natural beauty. — Anthony Marra

And this is why studying the history of psi is important. People have been reporting these phenomena for millennia and studying them for centuries. Human experiences that continue to be repeated throughout history and across cultures, are not due to ignorance or lack of critical thinking, and demand a serious explanation. — Dean Radin

I went to Ohio University studying arts and history, and playing football. But I was only interested in girls, my pals and sports. I only did the minimum for school. — Ed O'Neill

So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine. For example, studying how Europeans came to dominate Africans enables us to realise that there is nothing natural or inevitable about the racial hierarchy, and that the world might well be arranged differently. 2. — Yuval Noah Harari

a 1959 text for young Congolese soldiers studying to become NCOs in the Force Publique explained that history "reveals how the Belgians, by acts of heroism, managed to create this immense territory." Fighting the "Arab" slavers, "in three years of sacrifice, perseverance and steadfast endurance, they brilliantly completed the most humanitarian campaign of the century, liberating — Adam Hochschild

I have people that have been studying [Obama's birth certificate] and they cannot believe what they're finding ... I would like to have him show his birth certificate, and can I be honest with you, I hope he can. Because if he can't, if he can't, if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility ... then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics. — Donald Trump

I got interested in palaeontology and vertebrate history - sparked by books on human evolution - then vertebrate evolution. Studying with palaeontologists kindled my interest in fieldwork. — Greg Graffin

In the 7th grade, I made a 20-foot long mural of the Lewis and Clark Trail while we were studying that in history because I knew I wasn't going to be able to spit back the names and the dates and all that stuff on a test. — Chuck Close

What must strike any intelligent witch or wizard on studying the so-called history of the Elder Wand is that every man who claims to have owned it has insisted that it is "unbeatable," when the known facts of its passage through many owners' hands demonstrate that has it not only been beaten hundreds of times, but that it also attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat attracted flies. — J.K. Rowling

If you start studying history closer, you'll find that most all wars are based on false flag operations to get people - to convince the people that they're under attack in some way so that they will support the wars. — Jesse Ventura

In late 1949, at two and a half years old, I arrived in Jamaica for the first time. I had crossed the Atlantic by air from England. My Jamaican father was studying in London, my European mother was sick, and so in true Jamaican style I was sent home to my grandparents. — Rachel Manley

He did recall that the summer after graduating from college before he joined the state police he had read Shakespeare. It was the pure language that stupefied him. He would be in a diner reading A Midsummer Night's Dream and his acquaintances were confident he was studying for some test. The test turned out to be the nature of his mind. Shakespeare seemed even truer than history. Literature was against the abyss while history wallowed in it. — Jim Harrison

I have always believed there is great value in studying the flaws of mankind and men - even fictional characters. All of us are flawed. All of us are diminished by some form of prejudice and bias. If a fictional character is to be realistic, he must struggle with imperfections and weaknesses. — K. Lee Lerner

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods. — Robert Schumann

By studying our history and focusing on the motives of the elite, we can draw an image of what our future might look like, and if we stay on the current path that we are on, the future looks very grim. — Joseph P. Kauffman

By studying yesterday, you will understand today. — Suzy Kassem

unearthing some of the most disturbing moments in Austrian history. He had made a sort of subspecialty of studying intellectuals persecuted in the pre-Nazi era, and we discussed his fascinating work on the assassination of Hugo Bettauer, the writer and editor whose dystopian 1923 novel, Die Stadt Ohne Juden (The City Without Jews), remains one of the most uncanny predictions of a historic catastrophe ever written. — Tom Reiss

The yearning for study was always there. I loved to learn. I really enjoyed studying
history. Taking college classes was just something I wanted to do. It gave me such a
feeling of satisfaction. — Nola Ochs

At school, up to the age of sixteen, I found history boring, for we were studying the Industrial Revolution, which was all about Acts, Trade Unions and the factory system, and I wanted to know about people, because it is people who make history. — Alison Weir

Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell. — Henry David Thoreau

Plainly, such an approach does not exclude other ways of trying to comprehend the world. Someone committed to it (as I am) can consistently believe (as I do) that we learn much more of human interest about how people think and feel and act by reading novels or studying history than from all of naturalistic psychology, and perhaps always will; similarly, the arts may offer appreciation of the heavens to which astrophysics cannot aspire. — Noam Chomsky

We are studying American history for the ninth time in nine years. — Laurie Halse Anderson

I am not more gifted than the average human being. If you know anything about history, you would know that is so
what hard times I had in studying and the fact that I do not have a memory like some other people do ... I am just more curious than the average person and I will not give up on a problem until I have found the proper solution. This is one of my greatest satisfactions in life
solving problems
and the harder they are, the more satisfaction do I get out of them. Maybe you could consider me a bit more patient in continuing with my problem than is the average human being. Now, if you understand what I have just told you, you see that it is not a matter of being more gifted but a matter of being more curious and maybe more patient until you solve a problem. — Albert Einstein

Most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic. — Ernst Mayr

History is one long chain of reflections. Hegel also indicated certain rules that apply for this chain of reflections. Anyone studying history in depth will observe that a thought is usually proposed on the basis of other, previously proposed thoughts. But as soon as one thought is proposed, it will be contradicted by another. A tension arises between these two opposite ways of thinking. But the tension is resolved by the proposal of a third thought which accommodates the best of both points of view. Hegel calls this a dialectic process — Jostein Gaarder

If I can't find a project that I'm really interested in, I'll just go back to college where I've been studying art history and French. I'm also going to study English and philosophy - the whole curriculum! — Emmy Rossum

The history of art cannot be properly understood without some reference to the history of science. In both we are studying the symbols by which man affirms his mental scheme, and these symbols, be they pictorial or mathematical, a fable or formula, will reflect the same changes. — Kenneth Clark

He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace. — Polybius

I really should be studying now, but you're much more important to me than a .50 calibre machine gun. — Kara Martinelli

Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form ... The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.
[Referring to studying fossil remains of the weevil, largely unchanged to the present day.] — Jean-Henri Fabre

One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life. I still feel surprised that such various substances can find shelter and nourishment in a poem. A poem in fact may be a sort of nourishing liquid, such as one uses to keep an amoeba alive. If prepared right, a poem can keep an image or a thought or insights on history or the psyche alive for years, as well as our desires and airy impulses. — Robert Bly

We are not just studying human history, we are shaping it. — Jason Russell

Ages employed in making history have no time for studying it. — Solomon Schechter

I've been through a lot. I've thought a lot about life, and I've spent a lot of time studying history and science. — Dan Brown

You cannot afford to confine your studies to the classroom. The universe and all of history is your classroom. — Stella Adler

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction. — Martin Scorsese

I love people, I love studying people more than history. So whatever situation I see, then I look at, what were the people like, more than history itself. — Colin Quinn

What I have learned from studying counterfactual history is that the law of unintended consequences always kicks in no matter how secure you are in your plan. We have to live with the historical record as it is, like it or not. — Gavriel David Rosenfeld

Sometimes in studying Ramanujan's work, [George Andrews] said at another time, I have wondered how much Ramanujan could have done if he had had MACSYMA or SCRATCHPAD or some other symbolic algebra package. — Robert Kanigel

Spend a few hours every week studying American history, human nature, and economic theory. Start with "Economics in One Lesson." Then try Keynes. Then Hayek. Then Marx. Then Hegel. Develop a worldview that you can articulate as well as defend. Test your theory with people who disagree with you. Debate. Argue. Adjust your philosophy as necessary. — Mike Rowe

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating new realities ... we're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. — Ron Suskind

Where you are undoubtedly studying art history, women's studies, and probably casting your own bronzes. And you probably work in a coffee house to help cover the rent. — Neil Gaiman

This novel is for everyone who has ever studied any monstrosity of history, with the serene satisfaction of being horrified while knowing exactly what was going to happen, rather like studying a dragon anatomized upon a table, and then turning around to find the dragon's present-day relations standing close by, alive and ready to bite. — Jo Walton

The opportunity of studying history, is the opportunity to experience empathy. — John Green

When you study history, you're really studying yourself. Every bit of history I've uncovered about my own family has some remnant in myself. — John Sedgwick

The person who expects to understand history must submerge himself in it, must get rid of patriotism, as well as bitterness. And especially in studying a historic life that consists in insecurity must the historian rid himself of all insecurity. He must accept the totality of the data in all their fullness, the noble with the paltry, thinking of how the two interlock. — Americo Castro

What you should do," she told Fat during one of his darker hours, "is get into studying the characteristics of the T-34." Fat asked what that was. It turned out that Sherri had read a book on Russion armor during World War Two. The T-34 tank had been the Soviet Union's salvation and thereby the salvation of all the Allied Powers- and, by extension, Horselover Fat's, since without the T-34 he would be speaking - not english or Latin or the koine - but German. — Philip K. Dick

I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations. — Tim Blake Nelson

The feeling of the supremacy of general over particular, of law over fact, of theory over personal experience, took root in my mind at an early age and gained increasing strength as the years advanced. It was the town that played the major role in shaping this feeling, a feeling which later became the basis for a philosophic outlook on life. When I heard boys who were studying physics and natural history repeat the superstitious notions about "unlucky" Monday, or about meeting a priest crossing the road, I was utterly indignant. I felt that my intelligence had been insulted, and I was on the verge of doing any mad thing to make them abandon their shameless superstitions. — Leon Trotsky

The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding. — Karl Jaspers

I'll never truly understand what it's like to be anyone but a white man in the United States. For all of my self-imposed distance from the status quo, I'll never be able to get my head around being the product of generations of hardship. The most brutal chattel slavery in human history. I'll never comprehend being penned up in an impoverished reservation on land that was once sovereign domain. I'll never know how it feels to be denied because of the color of your skin or because of where you came from. To have to watch your children suffer the same fate. But I still try to understand - by studying the history that the victors didn't write, and interacting with my fellow human beings. Finding out what their favorite color is. Asking what they daydreamed about as a child. Sharing laughs. Discovering the person. I — Arno Michaelis

I have spent much of my studies searching for the right question by which I might fully understand the breach between the world and me. I have not spent my time studying the problem of 'race' - 'race' itself is just a restatement and retrenchment of the problem. You see this from time to time when some dullard - usually believing himself white - proposes that the way forward is a grand orgy of black and white, ending only when we are all beige and thus the same 'race.' But a great number of 'black' people are already beige. And the history of civilization is littered with dead 'races' (Frankish, Italian, German, Irish) later abandoned because they no longer serve their purpose - the organization of people beneath, and beyond, and the umbrella of rights. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I'll tell you one thing I learned from studying History, Kitty. As soon as you see your opponents are reduced to insulting you personally, you know you're on the way to victory. — Anne Fine

Studying history is for tourists - polite, tidy people with clean desks and clean consciences. Making history is for people willing to get their hands dirty, to make mistake and lie when necessary, so that someday historians can sit quietly at their desks and act shocked. — Robert Ferrigno

Easily he had turned studying my least favorite subject in history into my now most memorable one. Then there was his want to make our relationship more real than superficial, something very new to me. Though I was one relationship more knowledgeable than he was, it always felt like he knew more than I did of how relationships where built for the long run. Then again, he could have just learned that from watching his parents or maybe the innocence of our relationship just made him want to keep it pure and real. Like digging deep and wanting to get to know me, not just make out sessions every time we were together. Augusto knew more of the real me, the girl who wants to be a history teacher, enjoys her fries with garlic and cheese, and appreciates when a boy doesn't complain when plans are made with my friends and he isn't a part of them. — Christina Marie Morales

Every people has a past, but the dignity of a history comes when a community of scholars devotes itself to chronicling and studying that past. — Sonia Sotomayor

I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war. — Phil Klay

Historiography -- commonly and often simultaneously defined as the study of historians' scholarship, how history has been and is contrived, the history of historical writing, and the body of historical scholarship on historical subject matter -- is, therefore, essential to understand when studying history. — Pero Gaglo Dagbovie

By studying human history, we can realize how much of human stupidity has fallen on fertile ground. Is gravity guilty for such an occurrence too? — Eraldo Banovac

Of course we all know people who aren't cut out for college, but I know it's a mistake to think of education only as a route to a better career. Reading books, studying history - all these things contribute to making us better citizens, too. — Rebecca Mead

I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion. — Ricky Jay

Laura picked up the menu again. "In graduate school I knew a woman from Africa who was just like this doctor, I think she was from Uganda. She was wonderful, and she didn't get along with the African-American woman in our class at all. She didn't have all those issues." "Maybe when the African American's father was not allowed to vote because he was black, the Ugandan's father was running for parliament or studying at Oxford," Ifemelu said. Laura stared at her, made a mocking confused face. "Wait, did I miss something?" "I just think it's a simplistic comparison to make. You need to understand a bit more history," Ifemelu said. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

All of my experience of studying religion, studying spirituality, studying natural healing, traditional medicine, has kind of enriched my vision of the world. Not only seeing reality as this moment, but as a culmination of all of the history behind us, and all of the fruit that hopefully we will be able to grow from the seeds that we are trying to plant, of goodness and peace and beauty and equality. — Assata Shakur

Nine owls have squawked out the rules and the hawks will talk, so soon they'll come marching out of the woodpile and the woodwork - sore-head, sore-foot, right up close, one-butt-shuffling into history but demanding praise and kind treatment for deeds undone, for lessons unlearned. But studying war once more ... — Ralph Ellison

I do preach the idea of individualism as in not adapting any kind of style or model other than that one of your own. I always found it strange in art history when studying about the different guilds and movements. It sounded too contrived and having to follow devised parameters to create art. I personally am not a team player in that manner. The art should be labeled by the artist's name only. — Adamo Macri

In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up even a particle of his unconsciousness. Ask those who have tried to introduce a new idea! — C. G. Jung

Lewis was studying literary history with the present and future in mind. — Philip Zaleski

Time is the most important factor in determining market movements and by studying past price records you will be able to prove to yourself history does repeat and by knowing the past you can tell the future. There is a definite relation between price and time. By studying time cycles and time periods you will learn why market tops and bottoms are found at certain times, and why resistance levels are so strong at certain times, and prices hold around them. The most money is made when fast moves and extreme fluctuations occur at the end of major cycles. — William Delbert Gann

History conditioned you for epic-scale calamity. Once, when she was studying the death tolls of battles in World War I, she'd caught herself thinking, Only eight thousand men died here. Well, that's not many. Because next to, say, the million who died at the Somme, it wasn't. The stupendous numbers deadened you to the merely tragic, and history didn't average in the tame days for balance. On this day, no one in the world was murdered. A lion gave birth. Ladybugs launched on aphids. A girl in love daydreamed all morning, neglecting her chores, and wasn't even scolded. — Laini Taylor

I always try to have a book on hand, traveling is an excellent way of providing perspective, and studying Art History has made going to art museums way more fun than you can imagine. — Gideon Glick

Marcel Duchamp said, "I don't believe in art. I believe in artists." This is actually a pretty good method for studying - if you try to devour the history of your discipline all at once, you'll choke. — Austin Kleon

Other approaches to studying language, and there are many, go by names like poetics, philology, and rhetoric, but as long as we have had the word in English, linguistics has been associated with the methods, goals, and results of science.1 When William Whewell (who is also responsible for the coinage, scientist) first proposed the term, it was in his History of the Inductive Sciences (1837.1:cxiv; he was borrowing it from the Germans, who, Teutonically
enough, later came to prefer Sprachwissenschaft). — Randy Allen Harris