Quotes About History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Edward Gibbon

The words come in the third chapter of his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". According to Gibbon, the reigns of the Roman emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were "possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government."

Voltaire, in his philosophical novel "L'Ingénu" had already said much the same thing: "En effet, l'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs".

Answer: Thomas Carlyle

The age in which he lived, said Carlyle, was one that denied the desirability or even the existence of great men. Carlyle, however, believed that it was the great men (the "heroes", classified as prophets, poets, priests, men of letters or kings) who fashioned history and therefore deserved "transcendent admiration". Among his chief examples are Muhammad, Dante, Shakespeare, Luther, Knox, Johnson, Rousseau, Burns, Cromwell and Napoleon I.

Answer: Karl Marx

The quotation is from Marx's "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", which treats from his philosophical viewpoint the events surrounding Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III)'s coup d'état of December 2, 1851. The "18th Brumaire of Year VIII" (November 9, 1799) was the date on which Louis' uncle Napoleon had made himself First Consul for Life (effectively dictator) of the French Republic.

Answer: Aldous Huxley

These are the opening words of Huxley's essay "A Case of Voluntary Ignorance", first published in "Esquire" in 1956. He begins by remarking that human beings still believe, in spite of experience, that peace can be secured by preparing for war and that political freedom is compatible with economic powerlessness. Most of the essay is devoted to the reluctance of the medical establishment to countenance new therapies.

Answer: Ambrose Bierce

The definition, pretty typical of Bierce in its tone, appears in his "Devil's Dictionary".

Answer: bunk

The remark was reported by the interviewer Charles N Wheeler. In 1919 Ford sued the "Tribune" for libel over an editorial in which he had been called an anarchist and an "ignorant idealist". During a lengthy cross-examination over his alleged "ignorance", he was unable to give the date of the Declaration of Independence, suggesting 1812 before correctly guessing 1776. Ford won his case - with damages of six cents!

Answer: 1066 And All That

The subtitle describes "1066 And All That" as "A memorable history of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates". It's partly a satire on the simplistic Anglocentric teaching of history which was once fairly common in Britain, and partly just an enjoyable pun-filled parody of the school history textbook and exam paper. Part of the joke, for me at least, is that (if I'm honest with myself) this bizarre travesty of history is sometimes very close to my own vague recollections of the schoolroom.

Answer: Konrad Adenauer

"Die Weltgeschichte ist auch die Summe dessen, was vermeidbar gewesen wäre." In other words, let's learn from our past mistakes.

Answer: I intend to write it

This is widely published as a Churchill quote, but I can't trace it to any source. However, the Hansard report of a debate on foreign affairs in the House of Commons in January 1948 shows Churchill as saying "I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself." Churchill did indeed produce a six-volume history of the Second World War, focusing mainly on the British involvement in the conflict.

Answer: controversies involving not very nice people

Justice Frankfurter's words come from the case of the US v Rabinowitz. Knowing that Mr Rabinowitz had sold forged postage stamps, police officers obtained a warrant for his arrest. On arresting him, they also searched his premises (although they had no search warrant) and seized further forgeries for which he was also tried and convicted.

A majority of Supreme Court justices held that the search was reasonable because it was "incident to a lawful arrest" and did not therefore contravene the fourth amendment. Frankfurter, however, dissented: Mr Rabinowitz might be "a shabby defrauder", but in Frankfurter's view the search violated his rights under the fourth amendment.