I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.
Frank ZappaRead
All the old history was written for the amusement of the ruling classes. The lower classes couldn't read, and their rulers didn't care about remembering what happened to them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History is often biased in favor of those in power, neglecting the experiences of the lower classes.
This quote by Frank Zappa highlights the idea that historical narratives are often crafted by those in positions of power, serving their interests and providing entertainment for the ruling classes. The implication is that the voices and experiences of the lower classes are marginalized, as they were typically not educated enough to engage with these histories, leading to a one-sided and incomplete understanding of our past.
Themes
HistoryPowerRuling ClassesLower ClassesBias
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on social justice, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of including diverse perspectives in historical narratives.
More from Frank Zappa
All quotes βThe richest people in the world aren't particularly smart or happy. And the happiest people in the world aren't particularly smart or rich.β¦ That leaves me making music. But we can't talk about that.
Frank ZappaRead
Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality. Freedom of speech, freedom of religious thought, and the right to due process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain.
Frank ZappaRead
Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.
Frank ZappaRead
Music is always a commentary on society.
Frank ZappaRead
I'm more interested in melodic things. I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot.
Frank ZappaRead
Similar quotes
Sixty years after the end of the war, the time has come to make this information available. With the number of survivors and witnesses diminishing by the day, and the reality that the Holocaust is fading into the pages of history and memory, we should not have to wait any longer.
Abraham FoxmanRead
An accurate knowledge of the past of a country is necessary for everyone who would understand its present, and who desires to judge of its future.
Annie BesantRead
History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.
Edmund BurkeRead
I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government an official note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Neville ChamberlainRead
Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, another hinge event in American history, 9/11 was a great tactical victory for America's enemies. But in both these cases, the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse.
Peter BergenRead
The epic story of the West is the development in the 19th century of a mass prosperity the world had never seen and its near-disappearance in one nation after another in the 20th.
Edmund PhelpsRead