You come to understand that history might be, as Thomas Carlyle put it, “a distillation of rumor, ” or, as Napoleon said, “a set of lies generally agreed upon

James Alexander Thom
About This Quote

It is hard to understand that history might be a distillation of a person's memory. The true history of a person is actually a set of lies agreed upon by the people during the time period. There is no way of knowing what really happened because most of the information was lost over time. It is so hard to understand that history might be a distillation of rumor and lie as facts as we know them today cannot be trusted.

Source: The Art And Craft Of Writing Historical Fiction: Researching And Writing Historical Fiction

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