Historical Amnesia Quotes

In 1962 the president of the American Historical Association, Carl Bridenbaugh, warned his colleagues that human existence was undergoing a "Great Mutation" - so sudden and so radical "that we are now suffering something like historical amnesia." He lamented the decline of reading; the distancing from nature (which he blamed in part on "ugly yellow Kodak boxes" and "the transistor radio everywhere"); and the loss of shared culture. ~ James Gleick

Those who suffer from historical amnesia, the belief that we are unique in history and have nothing to learn from the past, remain children. They live in an illusion. ~ Chris Hedges

Human beings can be redeemed. Empires cannot. Our refusal to face the truth about empire, our refusal to defy the multitudinous crimes and atrocities of empire, has brought about the nightmare Malcolm predicted. And as the Digital Age and our post-literate society implant a terrifying historical amnesia, these crimes are erased as swiftly as they are committed. ~ Chris Hedges

Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead. ~ Noam Chomsky

The people we find truly anathema are the ones who reduce the past to caricature and distort
it to fit their own bigoted stereotypes. We've gone to events that claimed to be historic fashion
shows but turned out to be gaudy polyester parades with no shadow of reality behind them. As
we heard our ancestors mocked and bigoted stereotypes presented as facts, we felt like we had
gone to an event advertised as an NAACP convention only to discover it was actually a minstrel
show featuring actors in blackface. Some so-called "living history" events really are that bigoted.
When we object to history being degraded this way, the guilty parties shout that they are "just
having fun." What they are really doing is attacking a past that cannot defend itself. Perhaps
they are having fun, but it is the sort of fun a schoolyard brute has at the expense of a child who
goes home bruised and weeping. It's time someone stood up for the past.
I have always hated bullies. The instinct to attack difference can be seen in every social
species, but if humans truly desire to rise above barbarism, then we must cease acting like beasts.
The human race may have been born in mud and ignorance, but we are blessed with minds
sufficiently powerful to shape our behavior. Personal choices form the lives of individuals; the
sum of all interactions determine the nature of societies.
At present, it is politically fashionable in America to ~ Sarah A. Chrisman

For whom do you cry, my son?" the Great Spirit asked.
"I do not know."
"Yes, you do. ~ P.J. Parker

This was raw. This was primal. This was real. ~ Angela Quarles

As their figures recede, it strikes Filsan as ironic that they had delayed fleeing so they could take as many of their possessions as possible, but now those very possessions prevent their flight. ~ Nadifa Mohamed

My point is, however, that churches do promote beliefs that would more appropriately find a place in a context of intellectual debate. They wind up cheerleading for highly dubious opinions on historical, scientific, and metaphysical matters, simply on the bases of emotional preference and the inertia of tradition. They demand conformity to these beliefs, and if you cannot swim with the current, then, well partner, maybe you'd be happier in another pool, another lake in fact, the one ablaze with burning sulfur. ~ Robert M. Price

Every historical moment needs the stories to be told about it. ~ Paul Auster

So, based on the historical records of past centuries, two churches co-existed through the course of time before the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. One church, speaking from Rome, espoused the formation of Sunday as a substitute for the Sabbath as the day of weekly worship. The other - scattered, persecuted, and nameless, yet thriving - advanced the apostolic agenda, which included the observance of the Saturday Sabbath of the fourth commandment. ~ Daniel Knauft

Nowadays it seems you learn only what is reasonable
and relevant. I went to Rome with a young
friend, educated on the latest lines, and who
had taken historical honours at Cambridge.
The first morning the pats of butter came
up stamped with the Twins. " Good old
Romulus and Remus," said I. " Good old
who? " said she. She had never heard of
the Twins and was much bored when I told
her the story; they had no place in " con¬
stitutional history ", and for her the old wolf
of the Capitol howled in vain: " Great God!
I'd rather be "! ~ Jane Ellen Harrison

The earl narrowed his eyes as he hopped off his bay gelding and surveyed the deep green expanse of lawn surrounding the ancestral home. The graceful house, built atop and around an ancient abbey, wore its centuries of accretion with aplomb, as if it had always perched atop this
gentle slope. In the slanting late afternoon sun, the fading red-brick walls glowed. "My God, I hate the country," he said. ~ Jenny Holiday

Rocking back on his haunches, he ran the pad of his thumb down her sex and swirled it through her moisture. "You're so wet for me."
"Tis a good thing?" she asked with a tremor in her voice.
His deep chuckle rolled though her chest. "Aye, a very good thing. ~ Amy Jarecki

The physiological effects of an electrocution are severe and painful. Besides launching the body into violent convulsions, the electrocution of a human being causes massive destruction throughout the body. ~ Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

Writers are influenced by their upbringing and experiences. But they are also influenced by the writings of others, the major historical events of their times and the great public and literary figures to whom they are exposed. ~ Joseph Kenyon

Every part of our program of perestroika - and the program as a whole, for that matter - is fully based on the principle of more socialism and more democracy. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

I need to leave something behind. Something that will stay. This room should be a historical landmark, the site of the beginning and end of Colby and Bev. Several minutes have passed, and I know that if I wait too long there will be a knock on the door and I'll have to go, but I need to leave a mark. It has to be significant enough to last, but subtle enough that the maid won't notice and wash it away.
As I'm looking around I realize that I never noticed the print above the bed. It's another in the family series - a faded wedding portrait. Groom in tux. Bride with pearls. It comes off the wall easily.I set the print on the bedspread and wit eht dust on the wall with the sleeve of my hood. I take out a Sharpie from my bag. The wall has yellowed to create a perfect rectangle where the photograph must have been hanging, unremoved, for years.
I fill the whiter space with this: I never got to tell you how beautiful you are.
And then I return the frame to its place on the wall and go back out into the night. ~ Nina LaCour

[On Jason Mashak's book SALTY AS A LIP, as reviewed in The Prague Post:] Mashak amalgamates various national, historical and religious traditions into a myth-mash that illuminates many sects' fanatical compartmentalizing, and the fact that so many religions and philosophies share similar goals, if not roots. ~ Stephan Delbos

The beauty of nature can only have its value and meaning if it nurtures and inspires the dwellers to live and create history, arts, culture, and language so that its spirit can be told from one generation to the next. The nature is the medium from which the dwellers build their historical lives (structure), and the interconnecting story between nature and people is the final historical form, that is, as a complete historical narrative between the dwelling and the dwellers within a particular time and space in the history of our planet. (Danny Castillones Sillada, Tomorrow's conservationists what we can learn from Danjugan Island) ~ Danny Castillones Sillada

At least reindeer kisses do not cause me to take leave of my senses. ~ Shelly Thacker

When I consider all the circumstances detailed above respecting the Pans, I cannot help believing that, under the mythos, a doctrine or history of a sect is concealed. Cunti, the wife of Pandu (du or God, Pan), wife of the generative power, mother of the Pandavas or devas, daughter of Sura or Syra the Sun Pandaea only daughter of Cristna or the Sun Pandion, who had by Medea a son called Medus, the king of the Medes, who had a cousin, the famous Perseus surely all this is very mythological an historical parable! ~ Godfrey Higgins

As much as Henry Kissinger wanted to attribute historical movement to impersonal forces, he too conceded to "the difference personalities make". ~ Walter Isaacson

We're not going to waste our valuable space or your precious energy by giving equal time to stories of tragedy, failure, and tumult. They get far more that their fair share of attention everywhere else. Future historians might even conclude that our age suffered from a collective obsessive-compulsive disorder: the pathological need to repetitively seek out reasons for how bad life is. ~ Rob Brezsny

Warning: Contains a Norman warrior with a thirst for justice, a Welsh rebel princess with second sight and a steady bow hand, magical prophecies, and a plot of royal proportions. ~ Sandra Jones

We can go back to the Dark Ages! The crust of learning and good manners and tolerance is so thin! It would just take a few thousand big shells and gas bombs to wipe out all the eager young men, and all the libraries and historical archives and patent offices, all the laboratories and art galleries, all the castles and Periclean temples and Gothic cathedrals, all the cooperative stores and motor factories - every storehouse of learning. No inherent reason why Sissy's grandchildren - if anybody's grandchildren will survive at all - shouldn't be living in caves and heaving rocks at catamounts. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Demanding historical (or scientific) veracity as a prerequisite for truth is another kind of tunnel vision. To do so is to mistake poetry for prose. ~ Charles Kimball

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement. ~ Angela Davis

I happened to happened to land in a time, in the middle '60s, that without knowing it, and without being told by the history of theater - which we now see from a historical point of view was an explosive time. ~ James Earl Jones

I started out as an atheist, utterly convinced that God didn't create people but that people created God in a pathetic effort to explain the unknown and temper their overpowering fear of death. My previous book, The Case for Christ, described my nearly two-year examination of the historical evidence that pointed me toward the verdict that God really exists and that Jesus actually is his unique Son. (For ~ Lee Strobel

It's a jump, Minuette, that's all it is. A jump out of this world, straight into my arms."
Incredibly, she managed to smile. "You will catch me?"
He pressed his lips against hers. "Always. ~ Laura Anderson

He had an overwhelming urge to take possession of her lips, silencing any mention of another man's name. ~ Tamara Hughes

I'm going to take Charity to France. I can look after her there. You can go on with your life here, and I won't be here to ... to bother anyone."
He muttered two quiet words.
"What?" she asked in bewilderment, inching forward to hear him.
"I said, try it. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The night they'd made love, Eleanor had given him everything. She'd placed her body and her pleasure in his hands, yes, but she'd given him her trust, too. He'd felt it in every sigh, every gasp, every kiss, and it had devastated him. Humbled him. It was the sweetest pleasure he'd ever known. ~ Anna Bradley

I lived in the grip of laudanum. I know what it is to crave. To tremble with wanting, be ruled by need. It nearly destroyed me. This is worse. There's no respite. As soon as I leave your bed, I'm counting the hours until the next night. ~ Tessa Dare

There was only Matthew. The rugged, straightforward captain, with his square jaw and horseshoe mustache, looking at her with an intensity that made her believe cardiac somersaults were anatomically possible. ~ Karen Witemeyer

It is important for a woman to have the duplicity to make good use of whatever gifts she might have, however valueless they might seem... You have to have the inner strength to pursue your goal, and not care how many enemies you make along the road. It is not easy. ~ Anne O'Brien

Of all the things I dislike, I hate women worst. ~ James Jones

Fifty years ago, historians advised politicians and policy-makers. They helped chart the future of nations by helping leaders learn from past mistakes in history. But then something changed, and we began making decisions based on economic principles rather than historical ones. The results were catastrophic. ~ Annalee Newitz

Instead of revering a four-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years. ~ Mitch Landrieu

The claim at the heart of this book has been carefully researched by several generations of scholars and is orthodox in academic circles, if not beyond. Christians under the Roman Empire were neither constantly persecuted nor martyred in huge numbers for their faith. They were prosecuted from time to time for alleged sedition, holding illegal meetings or refusing to sacrifice to the emperor. They were, like other convicts, sometimes tortured and executed in horrible ways. They seem to have been regarded by many Romans with distaste as a particularly silly superstition. But Christian stories of thousands of individual and mass martyrdoms over centuries have at best a limited basis in historical fact, and in many cases are sheer fiction. ~ Teresa Morgan

I've always felt that the poems I've written which have historical context are hopefully not just simply plucking something out of history and saying great, let's write about that. In every case what has happened is that I've become fascinated or haunted by something and couldn't shake it. ~ Rita Dove