Historians once assumed that when childhood mortality was high, people must not have loved their children very much; it would have been too painful. Research has since proved that assumption wrong.
Jill LeporeRead
We have discharged one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers lessen. We find only that we forget, when times are good, that times were ever bad.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the cyclical nature of debt and the tendency to forget past struggles during prosperous times.
Jill Lepore's quote highlights a critical observation about societal behavior towards debt and economic hardship. It suggests that while we may relieve one generation of debtors, the problems of debt and financial difficulties persist across generations. The assertion that good times tend to make us forget past adversities serves as a reminder that economic cycles repeat themselves, and awareness of history is crucial to avoid making the same mistakes again.
Themes
DebtHistoryCyclesForgettingStruggleEconomy
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on economic history, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of remembering past financial crises.
More from Jill Lepore
All quotes →Americans like to get rich fast. That this means we go broke fast, too, is something that we have become very good at forgetting. Our ignorance of history is matched only by our unfailing optimism; it's actually part of our optimism.
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History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what to do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.
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