Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.

Can't disagree with the need for a grasp of history.

Most of all, perhaps, we need an intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has anything magical about it, but we cannot study the future.

People must know the past to understand the present, and to face the future.

If we understand the past, we are more likely to recognise what is happening around us.

You cannot not know history.

A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.

I don't think you should ever run from history. You should learn from it and embrace it.

I believe that nothing is more important to our ability to effectively address our present than understanding the lessons learned from those who have come before us.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

You simply can't understand the present if you don't understand the past. There is no more alarming case study of the consequences of historical ignorance than President Trump.

Being in London has really taught me how important history is. Just having information of the past. It helps you predict the future, which is all we really have as, you know, humans.

It's hard to understand a moment in history when you are in it.

Without understanding your history, you can't get a perspective about the present.

History lets you know exactly where you are today. And if you pay attention to it, it gives you a broad perspective of everyone. You can relate it to pretty much any time.

Can we ever understand the past, or do we just endlessly rework it to suit us in the present?

The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.

The past is the prism through which we see a great, great, great deal of ourselves; it's a useful prism. It doesn't mean that we're fascinated by the dead or that we're fascinated by things that are settled. It is just one place where we can go to understand ourselves in the present.

I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life.

If the present tries to sit in judgment of the past, it will lose the future.

One has to learn from history. Quite frankly, it is almost impossible to have a sense of vision without a sense of history. If history is learned, then it doesn't have to repeat itself over generations.

The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.

If you don't know history, it is as if you were born yesterday.

To find out what we presently are and where we are going, we must know what we have been and what others have done; and this, because the humanities are at once the creation and the interpreters of the past, is the great purpose of humanistic scholarship.

Knowledge of the past and an optimistic view of the present give you great opportunities.