Retrospective Judgment Quotes

Self-righteousness in retrospect is easy--also cheap.

Why I talked about political correctness: the colonial is now such a major taboo that any achievement of the colonial period, or any generosity implied in colonialism, is again fundamentally neglected or fundamentally not recognised. That's crazy, because history is a series of layers, and you cannot say, "This layer I support and this layer I cancel." History is history and you cannot retrospectively manipulate it.

I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

It's very easy for some men and in some cases women to sit back and say with 20-20 hindsight, "Tsk-tsk, should have done more." But it doesn't account for the reality.

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.

Hindsight can be merciless. People of any given era often look back in time and wonder how their predecessors could have been so dimwitted.

We ought not to endeavor to revise history according to our latter day notions of what things ought to have been, or upon the theory that the past is simply a reflection of the present

I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.

Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact.

Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong.

Those who made the decisions with imperfect knowledge will be judged in hindsight by those with considerably more information at their disposal and time for reflection.

Evil is obvious only in retrospect.

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

We tend to paint the past only in extremes, as having been either categorically better than the present or irredeemably bad.

Every man is responsible only for his own acts. The sons do not inherit the sins of the fathers. But can we say: that was long ago, they were different?

I listened to a clip someone had put up of me singing 'I Am What I Am' in the musical 'La Cage aux Folles.' I thought I was absolutely dreadful. It's like when you see photos of yourself at parties - at the time you thought you looked so cool and glamorous but you just look a bit drunk.