Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.
Donald KaganRead
Without history we are the prisoners of the accident of where and when we were born.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History shapes our identity and understanding of the world.
This quote by Donald Kagan emphasizes the importance of history in shaping our perspectives and identities. Without an understanding of our historical context, we risk being limited by the circumstances of our birth, lacking the insights that history provides about our culture, values, and the world around us. It suggests that knowledge of history can liberate us from ignorance and help us navigate our present and future more wisely.
Themes
HistoryIdentityUnderstandingPerspectiveContext
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the importance of historical education, one might quote Kagan to emphasize the necessity of understanding our past.
More from Donald Kagan
All quotes βI can see that you are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a different place or a different time: What's the same and what's different?
Donald KaganRead
War has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states
Donald KaganRead
Similar quotes
Your responses to the events of life are more important than the events themselves.
Virginia SatirRead
Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way.
Abraham LincolnRead
Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realise your ideal of compassion.
Nhat HanhRead
I believe every chess player senses beauty, when he succeeds in creating situations, which contradict the expectations and the rules, and he succeeds in mastering this situation.
Vladimir KramnikRead
I see thee better in the dark I do not need a light.
Emily DickinsonRead
We all have some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances.
Charles DickensRead