Kate Morton Quotes

Historians often find important decisions few knew were important at the time.

Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.

When we think about the past, we think, 'It must have been so boring.' It's actually not.

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgement on the past.

History never looks like history when you are living through it.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

There are plenty of dead scientists I admire, but I can't think of any living ones. This is probably because it is only in retrospect that one can see who made the important contributions.

I'm certainly not sorry that there were some things I missed. You may think you're missing something at that time but later when you look at it, you didn't miss anything.

Your regrets aren't what you did, but what you didn't do. So I take every opportunity.

Predicting the future is very difficult. As a historian I have trouble trying to predict the past.

As you get further away from a presidency you are better able to assess that presidency.

Time and again ... governments have rejected proposals today—and longed for them tomorrow.

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

There's a tendency when we write history to do it with the power of hindsight and then assume almost god-like knowledge that nobody living through history has.

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

A lot of things in history are timing, and it's very peculiar because in retrospect things [and] people can look more brilliant or necessary than they actually were.

It seems that great minds a hundred years ago saw what would happen today or tomorrow, while we to whom it is happening blind ourselves in order not to be disturbed in our daily routine.

Hindsight, usually looked down upon, is probably as valuable as foresight, since it does include a few facts.

But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'turning points', one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.

The most fertile source of insight is hindsight.

When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.

Mr. [Richard M.] Nixon never has anything but hindsight.

Life comes in the form of opportunities, which are easy to recognize, after they have been wasted.

We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it.