Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.
Donald KaganRead
Without history we are the prisoners of the accident of where and when we were born.
Interpretation
History shapes our identity and understanding of the world.
This quote by Donald Kagan emphasizes the importance of history in shaping our perspectives and identities. Without an understanding of our historical context, we risk being limited by the circumstances of our birth, lacking the insights that history provides about our culture, values, and the world around us. It suggests that knowledge of history can liberate us from ignorance and help us navigate our present and future more wisely.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of historical education, one might quote Kagan to emphasize the necessity of understanding our past.
Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.
I can see that you are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a different place or a different time: What's the same and what's different?
War has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states
Intersectionality is an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power. Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constituents within groups that claim them as members but often fail to represent them.
The moon of Mahomet Arose, and it shall set; While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon, The cross leads generations on.
Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.
I don't see people. I don't see men and women at all. When I see them, I see... their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that's who I talk to.
We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.
The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strenght state; usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.
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