Douglas Southall Freeman Quotes

A nation which has forgotten its past can have no future.

There is no future for a people who deny their past.

My country has no history, only a past.

A country is an individual in the world that represents a group of people, so I decided we would name our band after a country, and Portugal happened to be the one that popped up.

When a certain swathe of India's population considers the country's ancient past, it doesn't see a country fragmented into kingdoms, savaged by caste divisions, and mired in poverty; rather, what's envisioned is a vast, unified Hindu empire stretching from Kashmir to the Indian tip at Kanyakumari.

I just love learning about the past and everything we've been through as people and as a country.

For example, Taj Mahal is the first thing which comes to the minds of many foreigners who visit India, and how Eiffel Tower in Paris, but there is lot more to every country.

I've been to most parts of India over the years, but Jaipur is my favourite city. Inspiration can be found at every turn.

By emphasizing the importance of a common language, we safeguard a proud legacy and help to ensure that America's future will be as great as her past.

People who want a different Pakistan have to find a way to go back into their own past and revive the vision of their founders, that was clearly a tolerant and diverse one, so that they can distinguish it from the one that has been imposed upon it. If they can do that, they can take back this city and their country.

New Orleans is not in the grip of a neurosis of a denied past; it passes out memories generously like a great lord; it doesn't have to pursue "the real thing."

Books come at my call and return when I desire them; they are never out of humor and they answer all my questions with readiness. Some present in review before me the events of past ages; others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. These teach me how to live, and those how to die; these dispel my melancholy by their mirth, and amuse me by their sallies of wit. Some there are who prepare my soul to suffer everything, to desire nothing, and to become thoroughly acquainted with itself. In a word, they open the door to all the arts and sciences.

Obviously, I would have been happier if Canada had not been conquered in the past by the English, if this part of North America had remained French, but you can't rewrite history.

Our economy has become completely different, on the whole. The size has changed. The economy has almost doubled in size. And the quality is changing, not as fast as we would like it to, but the structure is changing. Our Armed Forces are completely different today from what they were, say 15 years ago or so. All of this, including our great history, great culture, all of this, not just what we see today, is what makes the vast majority of Russia's citizens feel proud for their country.

I'm inspired as a writer by any place where I've lived for a significant amount of time that have memories, my past, and stories attached to them, and that's really New York and L.A. Any place where there's ghosts are inspiring.

For all the casual slurs about 'cultural imperialism', British imperialists were more interested in other cultures than anybody before or since, and, if they hadn't dug it up and taken care of it, we'd know hardly anything about the ancient world. What's important about a nation's past is not what it keeps walled up in the museum but what it keeps outside, living and breathing as every citizen's inheritance.

Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

You can't take treasured beliefs from the past and mock them.

A nation that forgets its past has no future.

We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

I have full faith in my people that they will rise to every occasion worthy of our past Islamic history, glory and traditions.

The language itself, whether you speak it or not, whether you love it or hate it, is like some bewitchment or seduction from the past, drifting across the country down the centuries, subtly affecting the nations sensibilities even when its meaning is forgotten.

Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.

If history is really relevant in today's world, the proposition doesn't command much respect. Perhaps the past is a different country, but if so no one much wants to travel there.

Contemporary fantasists all bow politely to Lord Tennyson and Papa Tolkien, then step around them to go back to the original texts for inspiration--and there are a lot of those texts. We have King Arthur and his gang in English; we've got Siegfried and Brunhild in German; Charlemagne and Roland in French; El Cid in Spanish; Sigurd the Volsung in Icelandic; and assorted 'myghtiest Knights on lyfe' in a half-dozen other cultures. Without shame, we pillage medieval romance for all we're worth.