The best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering disappointments.
Interpretation
History teaches us to temper our expectations to avoid disappointment.
George Will's quote emphasizes the importance of learning from history in order to set realistic expectations for the future. By understanding past events and outcomes, individuals can avoid the pitfalls of radical expectations that can lead to disappointment and frustration when reality does not meet those expectations.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of context in decision-making, one might use this quote to highlight the relevance of historical analysis.
The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.
The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.
Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.
Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
Suppose, my dear Chadd, suppose it is we who are the idiots because we are not afraid of devils in the dark?
I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances.
It is well worth the efforts of a lifetime to have attained knowledge which justifies an attack on the root of all evil ... which asserts that because forms of evil have always existed in society, therefore they must always exist.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.