Top 100 History Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”

— David McCullough

2. “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”

— Michael Crichton

Also featured in: Family Quotes

3. “I Have a Dream”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Also featured in: Positive Quotes, Goal Quotes, Change Quotes, Opportunity Quotes

4. “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.”

— Karl Marx

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Hard Hitting Quotes, Changing the World Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Struggle Quotes

5. “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

— George Santayana

Also featured in: Short Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Smart Quotes, Past Quotes

6. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Also featured in: Acceptance Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Quotes About Hope

7. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Also featured in: Opportunity Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Powerful Quotes, Important Quotes

8. “I am Cyrus, king of the world...”

— Cyrus the Great

Also featured in: Greatness Quotes, Epic Quotes, Past Quotes, Quotes About the World

9. “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Winning Quotes, Military Quotes, Fighting Quotes, Struggle Quotes

10. “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

— Marcus Garvey

Also featured in: Identity Quotes, Legacy Quotes, Culture Quotes

11. “We study history not to be clever in another time, but to be wise always.”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Also featured in: Wise Quotes, Carpe Diem Quotes, Clever Quotes

12. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Victory Quotes, Sacrifice Quotes, Quotes About War

13. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

— Patrick Henry

Also featured in: Freedom Quotes, Hero Quotes, Quotes on Liberty

14. “Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

— Thucydides

15. “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

— Nathan Hale

Also featured in: Freedom Quotes, Duty Quotes, Sacrifice Quotes, Country Quotes

16. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

— Patrick Henry

Also featured in: Warrior Quotes, Epic Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Patriotic Quotes

17. “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Epic Quotes, Government Quotes, Quotes on Liberty

18. “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

19. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Also featured in: Make A Difference Quotes, Changing the World Quotes, Moving Quotes, Justice Quotes

20. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, Legacy Quotes, Important Quotes

21. “Study the past if you want to define the future.”

— Confucius

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Study Quotes, Short Deep Quotes, Past Quotes

22. “Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”

— George Washington

Also featured in: Perseverance Quotes, Short Inspiring Quotes, Quotes About Trying, Being Strong Quotes, Important Quotes

23. “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Life Quotes, Famous Quotes, Positive Life Quotes, Encouragement Quotes

24. “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Military Quotes, Powerful Quotes, Important Quotes

25. “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.”

— Thucydides

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Warrior Quotes, Vision Quotes, Quotes About War

26. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Famous Quotes, Short Inspiring Quotes, Motivational Monday Quotes, Important Quotes

27. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Dedication Quotes, Ambition Quotes, Beautiful Quotes, Determination Quotes

28. “Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.”

— George Washington

Also featured in: Confidence Quotes, Quotes About Trust

29. “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

— Neil Armstrong

Also featured in: Famous Quotes, Science Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Powerful Quotes, Important Quotes

30. “Courage – a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.”

— William T. Sherman

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Warrior Quotes, Military Quotes, Challenges Quotes

31. “History is a set of lies agreed upon.”

— Napoleon

32. “Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Also featured in: Greatness Quotes, Challenges Quotes, Ambition Quotes, Important Quotes

33. “Truth never damages a cause that is just.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Also featured in: Wise Quotes, Truth Quotes, Powerful Quotes, Justice Quotes

34. “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”

— Frederick Douglass

Also featured in: Learning Quotes, Empowerment Quotes, Self-Empowerment Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Powerful Quotes

35. “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

— Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Also featured in: Changing the World Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Women, Empowerment Quotes, Intelligent Quotes, Strong Women Quotes

36. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

— Charles Dickens

Also featured in: Fiction Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Creative Quotes

37. “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”

— Napoleon

Also featured in: Decision-Making Quotes, Quotes for Better Decisions

38. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Famous Quotes, Intelligent Quotes, Wise Quotes

39. “The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph.”

— George Washington

Also featured in: Positive Short Quotes, Military Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Victory Quotes

40. “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Also featured in: Military Quotes, Greatness Quotes, Being Strong Quotes, Past Quotes

41. “We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Optimistic Quotes, Choices Quotes, Not Giving Up Quotes, Destiny Quotes

42. “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Taking Action Quotes, Fighting Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Being Strong Quotes

43. “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”

— Winston Churchill

Also featured in: Commitment Quotes, Military Quotes, Duty Quotes

44. “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Quotes About People

45. “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

— Maya Angelou

Also featured in: Deep Quotes, Adversity Quotes, Past Quotes

46. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Also featured in: Giving Up Quotes, Peace Quotes, Freedom Quotes

47. “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Freedom Quotes, Government Quotes, Democracy Quotes

48. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Also featured in: Kindness Quotes, Peace Quotes, Powerful Quotes, Respect Quotes

49. “What’s past is prologue.”

— William Shakespeare

Also featured in: Experience Quotes, Clever Quotes, Past Quotes

50. “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

— George Washington

Also featured in: Values Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Democracy Quotes