But he had expressed to Mme. du Chatelet the hope that a way out might lie in applying philosophy to history, and endeavoring to trace, beneath the flux of political events, the history of the human mind. 'Only philosophers should write history, ' he said. 'In all nations, history is disfigured by fable, till at last philosophy comes to enlighten man; and when it does finally arrive in the midst of darkness, it finds the human mind so blinded centuries of error, that it can hardly undeceive it; it finds ceremonies, facts and monuments, heaped up to prove lies.' 'History, ' he concludes, 'is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead;' we transform the past to suit our wishes for the future, and in the upshot 'history proves that anything can be proved by history. . Will Durant
About This Quote

He was a man of deep and abiding convictions, who had the courage to express them, and the dignity to follow them. He had none of those doubts which torment those who seek answers in words they cannot give, and he knew that they must always remain unanswered. He was a man who loved truth and hated falsehoods, and he had no hesitation in condemning them as such.

Source: The Story Of Philosophy: The Lives And Opinions Of The Worlds Greatest Philosophers

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