Remembering History Quotes

Normal people don't have to decide what's worth remembering. You are given a hierarchy, recurring characters, the help of repetition, of anticipation, the firm hold of a long history. ~ David Levithan

To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical events. The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting what is not essential. ~ Adolf Hitler

Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the normal course of things die before us - grandparents, parents, teachers, and older friends. Heartlessness and amnesia seem to go together. But history gives contradictory signals about the value of remembering in the much longer span of a collective history. There is simply too much injustice in the world. And too much remembering (of ancient grievances: Serbs, Irish) embitters. To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it is necessary that memory be faulty and limited. If the goal is having some space in which to live one's own life, then it is desirable that the account of specific injustices dissolve into a more general understanding that human beings everywhere do terrible things to one another. * * * P ~ Susan Sontag

Nostalgia is not indulgence. Nostalgia tells us we are in the presence of imminent revelation, about to break through the present structures held together by the way we have remembered: something we thought we understood but that we are now about to fully understand, something already lived but not fully lived, issuing not from our future but from something already experienced; something that was important, but something to which we did not grant importance enough, something now wanting to be lived again, at the depth to which it first invited us but which we originally refused. Nostalgia is not an immersion in the past, nostalgia is the first annunciation that the past as we know it is coming to an end. ~ David Whyte

The people like me, finally, after years and years of agitation, made deeply moving and eloquent speeches against the wrongness of your domination over us, and then finally, after the mutilated bodies of you, your wife, and your children were found in your beautiful and spacious bungalow at the edge of your rubber plantation - found by one of your many house servants (none of it was ever yours; it was never, ever yours) - you say to me, "Well, I wash my hands of all of you, I am leaving now," and you leave, and from afar you watch as we do to ourselves the very things you used to do to us. And you might feel that there was more to you than that, you might feel that you had understood the meaning of the Age of Enlightenment (though, as far as I can see, it had done you very little good); you loved knowledge, and wherever you went you made sure to build a school, a library (yes, and in both of these places you distorted or erased my history and glorified your own). But then again, perhaps as you observe the debacle in which I now exist, the utter ruin that I say is my life, perhaps you are remembering that you had always felt people like me cannot run things, people like me will never grasp the idea of Gross National Product, people like me will never be able to take command of the thing the most simpleminded among you can master, people like me will never understand the notion of rule by law, people like me cannot really think in abstractions, people like me cannot be objectiv ~ Jamiaca Kincaid

Some people create war and misery, some create wealth and money, and some create ideas and art. But we all create our own deaths, fashioned out of our lives. Nobody will remember how you died, if nobody remembers how you lived. Forgoing freak accidents, we all choose how we die by how we live. Suicide, old age, AIDS, Cirrhosis of the liver, our deaths tell of how we lived. And even in a freak accident, if we are worth remembering, our lives will overshadow our deaths. If Henry Ford had gotten run over by a Mercedes, people would still remember him as the driver of the hit and run that changed history with his automobile assembly lines. ~ Jarod Kintz

Where history saddened others, we felt only a glorious, burning anger. We liked the challenge of it. It suited us. Anger was our favorite emotion. We were at home in it. It gave us purpose. ~ Rivers Solomon

We're remembering both the good and the bad in our history together in this world. This isn't an attempt to make people feel bad every morning and to force them to go stick their fingers in a wall socket. We chose these things we included as a way to point people toward the possibility of transformation even while remembering the great pain we have experienced as humanity. ~ Shane Claiborne

What shop did this book come from? she asked. Her father was looking worried at the cooker. He always got rice wrong. I don't know, Brooksie, he said, I don't remember. That was unimaginable, not remembering where a book has come from! and where it was bought from! That was part of the whole history, the whole point, of any book that you owned! And when you picked it up later in the house at home, you knew, you just knew by looking and having it in your hand, where it came from and where you got it and when and why you'd decided to buy it. ~ Ali Smith

Our past shapes our future whether we realize it or not. Remembering well is as important as doing well." -- Jonita Mullins ~ Jonita Mullins

Education is neither writing on a blank slate nor allowing the child's nobility to come into flower. Rather, education is a technology that tries to make up for what the human mind is innately bad at. Children don't have to go to school to learn to walk, talk, recognize objects, or remember the personalities of their friends, even though these tasks are much harder than reading, adding, or remembering dates in history. They do have to go to school to learn written language, arithmetic, and science, because those bodies of knowledge and skill were invented too recently for any species-wide knack for them to have evolved. ~ Steven Pinker

We're finally becoming aware of a process that has been unconscious since human experience began. From the start, humans have perceived a Birth Vision, and then after birth have gone unconscious, aware of only the vaguest of intuitions. At first in the early day of human history, the distance between what we intended and what we actually accomplished was very great, and then, over time, the distance has closed. Now we're the verge of remembering everything. ~ James Redfield

What the History is really about lies behind this: man, giant-sized, seen against the background of the entire world, universalized in his conflict with destiny, the gods, and the cosmic order. The medium that is most fertile in showing the true nature of reality is the human mind, remembering, reflective, and fertile most of all when its memory and reflection are put at the service of its dreaming and fantastic side. ~ Herodotus

If a memory wasn't a thing but a memory of a memory of a memory, mirrors set in parallel, then what the brain told you now about what it claimed had happened then would be coloured by what had happened in between. It was like a country remembering its history: the past was never just the past, it was what made the present able to live with itself. ~ Julian Barnes

I loved driving with Marlboro Man. I saw things I'd never seen before, things I'd never even considered in my two and a half decades of city life. For the first time ever, I began to grasp the concept of north, south, east, and west, though I imagine it would take another twenty-five years before I got them straight. I saw fence lines and gates made of welded iron pipe, and miles upon miles of barbed wire. I saw creeks--rocky, woodsy creeks that made the silly water hazard in my backyard seem like a little mud puddle. And I saw wide open land as far as the eye could see. I'd never known such beauty.
Marlboro Man loved showing me everything, pointing at pastures and signs and draws and lakes and giving me the story behind everything we saw. The land, both on his family's ranch and on the ranches surrounding it, made sense to him: he saw it not as one wide open, never-ending space, but as neatly organized parcels, each with its own purpose and history. "Betty Smith used to own this part of our ranch with her husband," he'd say. "They never had kids and were best friends with my grandparents." Then he'd tell some legend of Betty Smith's husband's grandfather, remembering such vivid details, you'd think he'd been there himself. I absorbed it all, every word of it. The land around him pulsated with the heartbeats of all who'd lived there before…and as if it were his duty to pay honor to each and every one of them, he told me their names, their stories, their relationship, the ~ Ree Drummond

It's not that I can't remember. It's that I prefer not to remember, which means that I prefer not to remember what not remembering did to me the last time I did it. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I've heard it said before that those who don't learn from the past are bound to repeat it, and I just don't know what I think about that. I figure I don't have too much use for it. The past will just weigh on you if you spend too much time remembering it. ~ Wiley Cash

I keep remembering being fifteen at Disneyland wearing my best friend's hoodie like it was my boyfriend's class ring. How many years it took me just to touch her face. How many years I sent praying my heart could play dead 'til the threat was gone. 'Til the world changed. 'Til history was history. ~ Andrea Gibson

What determines how we remember history and which elements are preserved and penetrate the collective consciousness? If historical novels stir your interest, pursue the facts, history, memories, and personal testimonies available. These are the shoulders that historical fiction sits upon. When the survivors are gone we must not let the truth disappear with them. Please, give them a voice. ~ Ruta Sepetys

electrical wires dragged down by the weight of the ice and flickering balefully, a row of sleet-covered planes stranded in an airport, a huge truck that's jackknifed and tipped over and is lying on its side with smoke coming out. An ambulance is on the scene, a fire truck, a huddle of raingear-clad operatives: someone's been injured, always a sight to make the heart beat faster. A policeman appears, crystals of ice whitening his moustache; he pleads sternly with people to stay inside. It's no joke, he tells the viewers. Don't think you can brave the elements! His frowning, frosted eyebrows are noble, like those on the wartime bond-drive posters from the 1940s. Constance remembers those, or believes she does. But she may just be remembering history books or museum displays or documentary films: so hard, sometimes, to tag those memories accurately. Finally, a minor touch of pathos: a stray dog is displayed, semi-frozen, wrapped in a child's pink nap blanket. A gelid baby ~ Margaret Atwood

The land has a memory.
Every stream and river runs with a confession of sorts, history whispered over rocks, lifted in the beaks of birds at a stream, carried out to the sea. Buffalo thunder across plains whose soil was watered with the blood of battles long since relegated to musty books on forgotten shelves. Fields once strewn with blue and gray now flower with uneasy buds. The slave master snaps the lash, and generations later, the ancestral scars remain.
Under it all, the dead lie, remembering. ~ Libba Bray

Telling our personal story constitutes an act of consciousness that defines the ethical lining of a person's constitution. Recounting personal stories promotes personal growth, spurs the performance of selfless deeds, and in doing so enhances the ability of the equitable eye of humanity to scroll rearward and forward. Every person must become familiar with our communal history of struggle, loss, redemption, and meaningfully contemplate the meaning behind our personal existence in order to draft a proper and prosperous future for succeeding generations. Accordingly, every person is responsible for sharing their story using the language of thought that best expresses their sanguine reminiscences. Without a record of pastimes, we will never know what were, what we now are, or what we might become by steadfastly and honorably struggling with mortal chores. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pages of our minds. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Astonishment: these women's military professions - medical assistant, sniper, machine gunner, commander of an antiaircraft gun, sapper - and now they are accountants, lab technicians, museum guides, teachers…Discrepancy of the roles - here and there. Their memories are as if not about themselves, but some other girls. Now they are surprised at themselves. Before my eyes history "humanizes" itself, becomes like ordinary life. Acquires a different lighting. I've happened upon extraordinary storytellers. There are pages in their lives that can rival the best pages of the classics. The person sees herself so clearly from above - from heaven, and from below - from the ground. Before her is the whole path - up and down - from angel to beast. Remembering is not a passionate or dispassionate retelling of a reality that is no more, but a new birth of the past, when time goes in reverse. Above all it is creativity. As they narrate, people create, they "write" their life. Sometimes they also "write up" or "rewrite." Here you have to be vigilant. On your guard. At the same time pain melts and destroys any falsehood. The temperature is too high! Simple people - nurses, cooks, laundresses - behave more sincerely, I became convinced of that…They, how shall I put it exactly, draw the words out of themselves and not from newspapers and books they have read - not from others. But only from their own sufferings and experiences. The feelings and language of educated people, strange as it may be, ~ Svetlana Alexievich

I said you weren't inconsequential. No one is. We change at least one person's life just by being born. If you don't believe me, go ask your mother. The fellows who write history books may not think that's so special. I happen to disagree. Isabelle and her family may be long gone, but because they lived, regardless of how small their lives may have been, I believe they are worth remembering, even if only by strangers.
- BEFORE EVER AFTER ~ Samantha Sotto

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

so here i sit. a sum of the parts. about a third way down this wonderful path, so to speak. and i've been thinking lately about a friendship that fell apart with time, with distance, and with the misunderstanding of youth. i'm trying not to confuse sadness with regret. not the easiest thing at times. i dont regret that certain things happened. i understand that perhaps i had a choice in the matter, or perhaps i believe in fate. probably not, but so far actions as small as the quickest glance to events as monumental as death have pushed me slowly along to right here, right now. there was no other way to get here. the meandering and erratic path was actually the straightest of lines. take away a handful of angry words, things once thought of as mistakes or regrets, and i'm suddenly a different person with a different history, a different future. that, i would regret. so here i sit. thinking about a person i once called my best friends. a man who might be full of sadness and regret, who might not give a damn, or who might, just might, remember the future and realize that's where its at. ~ Chris Wright

You are designed for success. Life's tough, but you are greater than its challenges. No matter what you have been through, you're still here. You have a history of victory.

So ignore the haters, the doubters, and free yourself from the emotional saboteurs. Don't ever forget that you are beautiful, you are capable, you are worthy... you are enough.

Set healthy standards and stick to them. Don't settle. Set healthy goals and follow them. Let your behavior speak the love and passion in your heart. Live life to the fullest... make each day worth remembering... Dream BIG & dare to go for it... Be unapologetically you! ~ Steve Maraboli

Ah, but what is history? Is it a record of what happened or rather our interpretation of what happened?" "I think it's both," I answer. "It has to be both. What good is remembering an event if you don't remember how it made you feel. How it impacted others. How it made them feel. You would learn nothing and neither would anyone else. ~ Susan Meissner

You don't really understand people until you hear their life story. If you know their stories, you grasp their history, their hurts, their hopes and aspirations. You put yourself in their shoes. And just by virtue of listening and remembering what's important to them, you communicate that you care and desire to add value. ~ John C. Maxwell

Remembering the loss of those Irishmen from all parts of the island who were sent to their deaths in the imperialist slaughter of the First World War is crucial to understanding our history. It is also important to recognise the special significance in which the Battle of the Somme and the First World War is held. ~ Martin McGuinness

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ~ George Santayana

All the old history was written for the amusement of the ruling classes. The lower classes couldn't read, and their rulers didn't care about remembering what happened to them. ~ Frank Zappa

We seem to live in a world where forgetting and oblivion are an industry in themselves and very, very few people are remotely interested or aware of their own recent history, much less their neighbors'. I tend to think we are what we remember, what we know. The less we remember, the less we know about ourselves, the less we are. (Interview with Three Monkeys Online, October 2008) ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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

How did I gain from not remembering my earthly self? It allowed me to go deep into realms beyond the worldly without having to worry about what I was leaving behind. Throughout my entire time in those worlds, I was a soul with nothing to lose. No places to miss, no people to mourn. I had come from nowhere and had no history, so I fully accepted my circumstances - even the initial murk and mess of the Realm of the Earthworm's-Eye View - with equanimity. ~ Eben Alexander

There has never yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

A little while ago I visited Omaha Beach for the second time in my life. In the intervening 26 years, nearly 20,000 tides had come and gone and little remains visible of the greatest military landing in man's history of endless warring. What's to be seen is mostly in a superb museum and a panoramic cemetery. The cemetery memorializes with dignity and grandeur the event and the dead, and moves one deeply. Before they die less precipitously and/or in lesser purpose, Americans who can should visit World War II's Normandy Beach. Such seeing and remembering helps a man's perspective. ~ Malcolm Forbes

History will remember this," she says. "I do not need to. ~ Michelle Moran