An apology offered and, equally important, received is a step towards reconciliation and, sometimes, recompense. Without that process, hurts can rankle and fester and erupt into their own hatreds and wrongdoings.
Margaret MacmillanRead
Use it, enjoy it, but always handle history with care.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Approach history with appreciation and caution, recognizing its significance.
Margaret Macmillan emphasizes the importance of studying and enjoying history while being mindful of its complexities and the lessons it imparts. History is a powerful tool that can shape our understanding of the present and future, but it must be treated with respect and care to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Themes
HistoryCareUnderstandingAppreciationLessons
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social responsibility, one could say, 'Use it, enjoy it, but always handle history with care, as it teaches us valuable lessons.'
More from Margaret Macmillan
All quotes βClimate change respects no borders.
Margaret MacmillanRead
War is a crucial, deeply ingrained part of human history. It has to be understood.
Margaret MacmillanRead
There was that argument that if we had more women in positions of authority, the world would be a nicer place. And then we got Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi. When women become acclimatised to war, they can become every bit as ruthless as men.
Margaret MacmillanRead
Theodore Roosevelt's policy to build a two-ocean navy confirmed that the old-style isolationism of the founders had not survived the modern, increasingly globalized world.
Margaret MacmillanRead
If we don't take responsibility for each other, it seems to me the future is going to be even bleaker.
Margaret MacmillanRead
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Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus.
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My mom, Clida, taught my four brothers and me about her father's work to organize black voters in rural Louisiana in the 1950s. We carried her dad's legacy of activism with us. The Civil Rights Movement was present in the daily life of my family in Detroit in the 1970s.
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And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
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For nearly a century and a half, this country deluded itself into thinking that its greatest calamity, the Civil War, had nothing to do with one of its greatest sins, enslavement. It deluded itself in this manner despite available evidence to the contrary.
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I give it as my fixed opinion, that but for our graduated cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico might, and probably would have lasted some four or five years, with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share; whereas, in less than two campaigns, we conquered a great country and a peace without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.
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History will tell you that borders are not inevitable, they hardly existed at the end of the 19th century.
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