Toni Morrison Quotes

There's power in turning to the past to illuminate the current state of things.

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

Learning history is easy; learning its lessons seems almost impossibly difficult.

History, well taught, is the demythologising of the past... Take any important issue of our time - Northern Ireland, Nuclear Disarmament, Race, The Welfare State, South Africa - and it becomes impossible to seriously confront any of them without understanding their historical background.

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

I'm interested in history, in trying to relate the past to the present and to understand how people thought about their problems and pleasures.

You cannot not know history.

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.

I think you can learn from history.

One test of a great work of history is does it make you feel like you have lived through the period

Histories are to educate so that we understand better for ourselves and for motivation.

One should live with history round one.

We learn from history. That's what it's all about.

The only reason to keep talking about history is if you are juxtaposing it with the world that we live in today, if you are learning something about our world by looking at the way they shaped their world.

I have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing today.

Construed as a means instead of an end, history is the weapon with which we defend the future against the past.

All history must be mobilized if one would understand the present.

History is contemporary. Your understanding of history confirms what you think of the present. It's not neutral. I would be very surprised if people with a different view of the present, don't take issue with my view of the past. I just hope that people deal with the content of the film.

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

If we want to know history, I would think there would be every reason to.

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

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

History is more or less bunk.

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 think people in general have neglected to learn about history.