Daniel Larison Quotes

It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present

No one ever really 'learns' from history, because choices never present themselves in exactly the same way, and because you can always choose similarities and differences to fit current needs.

The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.

History is not a blueprint for present practice.

I hope my journals relating to World War II will help clarify issues of the past and thereby contribute to understanding the issues and conditions of the present and future.

With the situation now, people might be intrigued to see how a country coped with war all those years ago.

It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of the need to find new ways of reading the past as an inspiring way of thinking about everything else, including the present.

History is past politics, and politics present history.

Trying to recreate for people the ways in which the past was similar to the present is an important part of what a historian has to do, and what a student of foreign policy has to do.

History is a dubious guide to current politics.

Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

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.

The best prophet of the future is the past.

Even in high school I was very interested in history - why people do the things they do. As a kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present.

It is not history, theology or mythology that interest me. It is the fact that history, theology or mythology could have alternative interpretations or explanations. I try to connect the dots between the past and the present.

I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.

Never underestimate how history injects itself into the present.

Ere we can forecast the future we must understand the present and bring a just sense of proportion to our review of the history of the past.

History is the present day consideration of what went before.

War should belong to the tragic past, to history: it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future.

In the 21st century we cannot fight the wars of the past.

Force sometimes does change things. I see not reason to believe that slavery in America would not have continued to the present day if it did not meet a violent end.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product.

Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the proper recipe, invariably designated "the lesson of history.

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