Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
Man seems to insist on ignoring the lessons available from history.
Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.
There are two kinds of man: the ones who make history and the ones who endure it.
The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.
When I started researching history in the 1960s, a lot of women about whom I've subsequently written were actually footnotes to history. There was a perception that women weren't important. And it's true. Women were seen historically as far inferior to men.
History serves as a model not only of who and what we are to be, we learn what to champion and what to avoid.
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.