Dan Simmons Quotes

We read the past by the light of the present, and the forms vary as the shadows fall, or as the point of vision alters.

History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.

People have different ways of interpreting history.

History is too often the refuge of the tidy-minded, making neat patterns when the dust has settled.

The task of understanding the past is neverending.

Even historians with knowledge of the event, and with the materials before them on which to form a judgment, see but little way into the causes and consequences of the great events in human history.

We learn from history. That's what it's all about.

If only the sense of actuality can be lulled-and it sleeps for ever in most historians-there is no passion that cannot be gratified in the past.

Many scholars have complained of our tendency to see history only in conflicts, but I am not convinced they are right. It is in conflict that our values are exposed.

History is a tangled skein that one may take up at any point, and break when one has unravelled enough.

History justifies whatever we want it to. It teaches absolutely nothing, for it contains everything and gives examples of everything.

The study of History is the best medicine for a sick mind.

The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical."

The historian is looked upon as objective when he measures the past by the popular opinions of his own time, as subjective when he does not take these opinions for models. That man is thought best fitted to depict a period of the past, who is not in the least affected by that period. But only he who has a share in building up the future can grasp what the past has been, and only when transformed into a work of art can history arouse or even sustain instincts.

All historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective, since every age is bound, in spite of itself, to make the dead perform whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind.

The ifs and buts of history...form an insubstantial if intoxicating diet.

A good history covers not only what was done, but the thought that went into the action. You can read the history of a country through its actions.

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

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.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

You can't say history teaches us this or that; it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.