62 Historical Perspective Quotes
Following is our list of historical perspective quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about historical significance.
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Famous Historical Perspective Quotes
You have to know the past to understand the present. — Carl Sagan
History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought. — Etienne Gilson
One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. — Thomas Sowell
To understand markets, you must first understand people; and to understand people, you must first understand history. — Russell Napier
The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation. — John Hope Franklin
With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present. — Kenneth M. Stampp
That's history. I say history because it happened in the past. — Murray Walker
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past. — Baruch Spinoza
To build up a future, you have to know the past. — Otto Frank
For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution. — Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
The study of history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice. — Alfred Thayer Mahan
Study the past if you would divine the future. — Confucius
History is a vision of God's creation on the move. — Arnold J. Toynbee
It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals — Angela Davis
The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future. — Mary Catherine Bateson
Historical Context Quotes
What counts as rational argumentation is as historically determined and as context-dependent, as what counts as good French. — Richard Rorty
The text is merely one of the contexts of a piece of literature, its lexical or verbal one, no more or less important than the sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological or generic. — Leslie Fiedler
I was not aware of how much I loved 'Canoa' until I saw it after doing 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' and realized that my voice - over about the story's historical context - that narrator - came from 'Canoa'. — Alfonso Cuaron
Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context. — Josh Mcdowell
I want to see books taken out of historical time and placed into a different timeline, such as evolutionary or geological time, as a means of putting the human experience in context. — Douglas Coupland
My advice to the 10 year old daughter is: fashion happens in a context. It's societal, it's cultural, it's historic, it's economic, and it's political. So all of her studies, everything that is happening in the world, all needs to be channeled through her in order to be a good designer. — Tim Gunn
The most advanced, creative and original thinking is always a product of historical context and the influences of previous geniuses, mentors, and collaborators on the mind of the originator. — Michael J. Gelb
Many novelists take well-defined, precise characters, whose stories are sometimes of mediocre interest, and place them in an important historical context, which remains secondary in spite of everything. — Raymond Queneau
We must also teach science not as the bare body of fact, but more as human endeavor in its historic context-in the context of the effects of scientific thought on every kind of thought. We must teach it as an intellectual pursuit rather than as a body of tricks. — Isidor Isaac Rabi
When people like Glenn Beck throw around the word Nazi without taking that kind of care, they are engaging in demagoguery. I am doing it with a concrete footnoted historical context. — Naomi Wolf
Historical Significance Quotes
What is Money? will be regarded as the defining question of our time in history. — Robert Breedlove
This is a historical lesson of immense significance, and should be kept in mind by anyone who thinks his refusal of bitcoin means he doesn’t have to deal with it. History shows it is not possible to insulate yourself from the consequences of others holding money that is harder than yours. — Saifedean Ammous
Students of American glass must always keep in mind that the creations they collect are truly examples of our American culture... and thus have historical significance. — James Lafferty
The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant. — Richard Hofstadter
I think you're never going to get somewhere ambitious if you don't start out with great ambitions. What I would say is: we got a start. That to me is a very significant thing. Here we were, a historic meeting to talk about climate change. — Christy Clark
It seems to me the only pertinent question is: cui bono? It is clear that the size of the privileged strata as a percentage of the whole has grown significantly under historical capitalism. And for these people, the world they know is better on the whole than any their earlier counterparts knew. — Immanuel Wallerstein
A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance. — Stefan Zweig
While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration. — Barney Frank
To be a writer was always my greatest aim. I remember writing a play about Guy Fawkes when I was 10. I suppose it's significant, at least to me, that my first work should be about a historical figure. — Peter Ackroyd
It is this third consequence that has been elaborated in greatest detail and has formed one of the most significant pillars of historical capitalism, institutional racism. — Immanuel Wallerstein
People Writing About Historical Perspective
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Carl Sagan |
571 | 5077 |
 Etienne Gilson |
9 | 66 |
 Thomas Sowell |
591 | 7260 |
 John Hope Franklin |
12 | 164 |
 Murray Walker |
95 | 671 |
 Baruch Spinoza |
218 | 2639 |
More Historical Perspective Quotes
Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around. — Jean M. Auel
Alexander the Great was not very tall — Greek Proverbs
The vibrant, real historic Christian faith is very wide and leaves lots and lots of room for varying perspectives. It's very diverse and wide, that's part of it's strength, life and vibrancy. — Rob Bell
We still have too much air and water pollution and we still need to work to reduce it. But we also need to put the problem of pollution into a historical as well as scientific perspective. — Ronald Reagan
The historical novel gives us perspective on our modern lives and helps us connect with the story, which we are continuing ourselves. — Mary Pope Osborne
The postmodern worldview denies that there is such a thing as truth: historical, moral, or otherwise. It denies that truth exists independently of our perspectives and interests. — Mark Earley
I expressed skepticism, in the first chapter, about the utility of time machines in historical research. I especially advised against graduate students relying on them, because of the limited perspective you tend to get from being plunked down in some particular part of the past, and the danger of not getting back in time for your orals. — John Lewis Gaddis
New perspectives give birth to new historic ages. Humankind has had many dramatic revolutions of understanding - great uses of fire and the wheel, language and writing. We found that the earth only seems flat, the sun only seems to circle the earth, matter only seems solid. — Marilyn Ferguson
Reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair. — Katherine Tait
Winston was a bit of a challenge, all right, from a lot of different perspectives. It wasn't just the culture or the class divide or the historical baggage - it was also the age difference. We had to see if I could be aged-up legitimately, without it becoming some sort of hokey acting challenge. — Brendan Gleeson
Why would you create a movie for black people if you don't understand the history and perspective of the people you are doing it for? You need historical perspective to make sound decisions. — Tim Reid
Being a parent gives you historical perspective. You have thoughts about how you fit into a larger generational drama - those who came before and those who will come after. — Marianne Williamson
Every opera, because every opera is a unique slice of a particular perspective, historical perspective and psychological perspective if not musical style, and so forth, they all present different challenges. Some can be musically very challenging, some can be psychologically more challenging. There is always something that requires a pretty specific amount of energy and attention. — Thomas Hampson
If you're going to make sense of politics you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don't agree with. — Tony Benn
Nothing's new since Genesis. And so everybody in their life thinks history began when they were born. Most people's historical perspective happened when they were born in the sense that nothing has ever been this bad. "We've never gone before this before," and of course we have. Things have been worse in many ways in the country. — Rush Limbaugh
Art may not have the power to change the course of history, but it can provide a perspective on historical events that needs to be heard, even if it's seldom heeded. After all the temporary influences that once directed the course of history have vanished, great art survives and continues to speak to each generation. — Dave Brubeck
Just look at Poland, a sort of European perspective this has. So we have an interest in seeing this relationship be a good one. We have a lot of historical ties of course, a history that we share. But this mustn't keep us from wherever we feel there are very grave differences of opinion to raise them with them. — Angela Merkel
Historically, opportunity has been afforded to a limited pool of people, excluding people of color and women. That doesn't diminish the talent or hard work of the people within that pool, but it does narrow the field of stories that have been told, and of the creative ideas and perspectives out there. — Joe Robert Cole
There were some types of sanctions that happen in the public world that made my work acceptable, where someone looks at the paintings and they don't - they may go, "okay," and then look at it in a different sort of way. Instead of just looking at it as some type of wild art, they look at it in a historical perspective or context. — Julian Schnabel
The logic of freedom of religion implies freedom to be an atheist, even though, from a historical perspective, this has not been accepted in the Muslim world. — Tariq Ramadan
As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiencesof the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die. — Henry David Thoreau
Western civilization presents one of the most difficult tasks for historical analysis, because it is not yet finished, because we are a part of it and lack perspective, and because it presents considerable variation from our pattern of historical change. — Carroll Quigley
Everything has its place and time. We men of the nineteen-forties can smile at the mistakes of the nineteen-thirties, and, in turn, the men of the nineteen-fifties will laugh at the mistakes of the nineteen-forties. It is this historical perspective that shall save us. — Lin Yutang
The idea of taking what people call the 'entertainment culture' as a focus of study, including historical perspective, is not a bad idea. — Neil Postman
What people most need now is to apply their conversion skills to those things that are essential for their survival. They need to convert facts into logic, free will into purpose, conscience into decision. They need to convert historical experience into a design for a sane world. — Norman Cousins
A historical perspective can also help free us from the ever-present danger -- especially at danger in the social sciences -- of absolutizing a theory or method which is actually relative to the fact that we live at a given moment in time in the development of our particular culture. — Rollo May
Some time ago a little-known Scottish philosopher wrote a book on what makes nations succeed and what makes them fail. The Wealth of Nations is still being read today. With the same perspicacity and with the same broad historical perspective, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have retackled this same question for our own times. Two centuries from now our great-great- . . . -great grandchildren will be, similarly, reading Why Nations Fail. — George Akerlof
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