I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history.
Interpretation
Understanding history is crucial for mastering policy and world affairs.
In this quote, Charles Krauthammer emphasizes the importance of historical knowledge in the realm of policy-making, particularly in the context of global issues. He suggests that a deep understanding of history is essential for anyone looking to navigate complex international relations and make informed decisions that can impact the world.
In practice
In a lecture about international relations, one could say, 'As Charles Krauthammer noted, mastering policy requires a deep understanding of history.'
If you get a call to go to a certain place in the middle of the night to pick up stolen goods, and it turns out the stolen goods don't show up but the cops show up, I think you're going to have a very weak story saying, 'Well, I got swindled here.'
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
You're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think - and you don't say it honestly and bluntly.
History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it 'racist.
When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.
There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Donβt read a book out of its right time for you.
In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
The makers of dictionaries are dependent upon specialists for their definitions. A specialist's definition may be true or it may be erroneous. But its truth cannot be increased or its error diminished by its acceptance by the lexicographer. Each definition must stand on its own merits.
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
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