I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.
Abraham LincolnRead
History is not history unless it is the truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History must be based on truth to be considered valid and meaningful.
Abraham Lincoln's quote highlights the essential relationship between truth and history. It suggests that for historical events to be authentic and recognized as history, they must be rooted in truth; otherwise, they simply become fabrications or misconceptions that fail to convey the reality of past events.
Themes
HistoryTruthAuthenticityRealityUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
During a history lecture to emphasize the importance of factual accuracy.
More from Abraham Lincoln
All quotes βSir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Abraham LincolnRead
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham LincolnRead
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
Abraham LincolnRead
For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then is due to the soldier.
Abraham LincolnRead
And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.
Abraham LincolnRead
Similar quotes
When I first read Barbara Tuchman's 'The Guns of August' in the autumn of 1963, it was as though history went from black and white to Technicolor.
Margaret MacmillanRead
The first democratic revolution was England in the 1640s.
Noam ChomskyRead
History was not a matter of missing minutes on the tape. I did not stand helpless before it. I hewed to the texture of collected knowledge, took faith from the solid and availing stuff of our experience. Even if we believe that history is a workwheel powered by human blood -- read the speeches of Mussolini -- at least we've known the thing together. A single narrative sweep, not ten thousand wisps of disinformation. (82)
Don DelilloRead
Like Israel, New York City's history has been defined by immigrants who come in search of freedom and the opportunity to build a better life. And like Israel, New York City has remained a target for terrorists who seek to destroy that freedom
Michael BloombergRead
If history starts as a guest list, it has a tendency to end like the memory of a drunken party: misheard, blurred, fragmentary.
Sarah ChurchwellRead
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,-and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking, - the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
Benjamin DisraeliRead