Select 1 of the quotes below that best summarizes your view of history, discuss how this quote encapsulates your opinions.
a) History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions. – Voltaire, philosopher
b) History is a myth that men agree to believe. –Napoleon, French leader
c) With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present. – Kenneth Stampp, historian
d) History is who we are and why we are the way we are. ~David McCullough, historian, author of John Adams
e) I’m interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life. – TONI MORRISON, Time interview, Jan. 21, 1998
f) Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results. – Machiavelli, philosopher
g) I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past-can’t be restored. Mark Twain, author of Huck Finn
h) Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence. – Goethe, German writer
i) History is not history unless it is the truth. – Abraham Lincoln
j) The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know. – Harry S Truman, 33rd President of the US
k) Revisionism is a healthy historiographical process, and no one, not even revisionists, should be exempt from it. – John Lewis Gaddis, historian
l) History isn’t really about the past – settling old scores. It’s about defining the present and who we are. – Ken Burns, director
m) People tend to forget that the word “history” contains the word “story”. ~Ken Burns, director
n) Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. ~African Proverb
o) I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. History is more or less bunk. It is a tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
~Henry Ford
p) The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different. – Billy Joel
q) Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history is that man can never learn anything from history. – Sting
r) I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. – Thomas Jefferson
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