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
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.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of historical education, one might quote Kagan to emphasize the necessity of understanding our past.
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.
I 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?
War has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states
It is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of all human suffering.
The day before is what we bring to the day we're actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done, the last day is the only one that is not the day before another day.
It is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence-- "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be glory."
Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.
Anxiety is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not compatible with innocence.
Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
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