The past is so often unknowable not because it is befogged now but because it was befogged then, too, back when it was still the present. If we had been there listening, we still might not have been able to determine exactly what Stanton said. All we know for sure is that everyone was weeping, and the room was full.
Interpretation
Understanding the past can be challenging due to its inherent uncertainty.
This quote reflects the idea that our comprehension of past events is clouded not only by time but also by the limitations of our perception during those moments. It emphasizes that even when moments are unfolding, our grasp of their significance or full context can be obscured, leaving us with only fragmented memories or emotional impressions.
In practice
In a discussion about historical accuracy, one might quote this to highlight the ambiguity of past narratives.
The future will be like the past, in the sense that, no matter how amazing or technologically advanced a society becomes, the basic human rhythm of petty malevolence, sordid moneygrubbing, and official violence, illuminated by occasional bursts of loyalty or desire or tenderness, will go on.
The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.
Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.
Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper.
The Refinement of Shame. People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.
No matter how hard we try words simply cannot express the horror, the shock, and the revulsion we all feel over what took place in this nation on Tuesday morning. September 11 will go down in our history as a day to remember.
The minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man.
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, Hiding they brav'ry in their rotten smoke?
Now I'm living out my life in a corner, trying to console myself with the stupid, useless excuse that an intelligent man cannot turn himself into anything, that only a fool can make anything he wants out of himself.
When we get up in the morning, what we put on is very much a reflection of how we see the world and how we want it to see us.
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