Leslie Odom Jr. Quotes

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

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?

You can't say history teaches us this or that; it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.

I think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never be imprisoned by it.

I don't think you learn specific lessons from history, but you do learn proportion.

A good history covers not only what was done, but the thought that went into the action. You can read the history of a country through its actions.

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

Our interest in history always reflects our own times.

History justifies whatever we want it to. It teaches absolutely nothing, for it contains everything and gives examples of everything.

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

We need history, not to tell us what happened or to explain the past, but to make the past alive so that it can explain us and make a future possible.

A good history covers not only what was done, but the thought that went into the action. You can read the history of a country through its actions.

From the very beginning, history wasn't content simply to be nostalgic fairytales; it wanted to make you think.

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

Whatever can be noted historically can be found within history.

While writing books about the past, I think about the present. It's not intentional, but somehow my books end up being written under the sign of a political mood.

Most of us, I think, are conscious of history swirling around outside the door, but when we're in the house, we're usually not dealing with history. We're not thinking about history.

You cannot not know history.

So often when we historicize material, we use this big wide-angle lens.

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 past has to inform the present.

It's very important to always put things in their historical contexts. It teaches important lessons about the country in question.

In any film there's always a historical implication.

While we read history we make history.

The task of understanding the past is neverending.