The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come.
The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind.
There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come.
Before this address to my countrymen is closed, I beg leave to observe, that as a new century has dawned upon us, the mind is naturally led ot contemplate the great events that have run parallel with and have just closed the last.
Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.
A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment.
The way we experience history and time in all its forms shifted quite massively between 1989 and 2001 - to the point where contrivances like decades are now kind of silly.
There are moments in history that people should be reminded of.
The past always seems somehow more golden, more serious, than the present. We tend to forget the partisanship of yesteryear, preferring to re-imagine our history as a sure and steady march toward greatness.
You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was.