Quote

It seems like people don't learn from the past.

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.

It is only education and understanding of the past that teaches us not to repeat history.

I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us.

If we understand the past, we are more likely to recognise what is happening around us.

It is clear that when you write a story that takes place in the past, you try to show what really happened in those times. But you are always moved by the suspicion that you are also showing something about our contemporary world.

An accurate knowledge of the past of a country is necessary for everyone who would understand its present, and who desires to judge of its future.

The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.

The past is what the past is.

There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours.