Steven Spielberg Quotes

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won't. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.

I think people in general have neglected to learn about history.

The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.

I think that there are some teachers that do a very good job of incorporating culture and history. And there are some teachers who could use a little more help in that area.

I can read a newspaper article, and it might trigger something else in my mind. I often like to choose in historical fiction things or subject matter I don't feel have been given a fair shake in history.

One of the things that really bothers me is that Americans don't have any sense of history. The majority of Americans don't have any idea of where we've come from, so they naturally succumb to the kind of cliche version that Ronald Reagan represented.

I don't think you should ever run from history. You should learn from it and embrace it.

It is a matter of public shame that while we have now commemorated our hundredth anniversary, not one in every ten children attending Public schools throughout the colonies is acquainted with a single historical fact about Australia.

American politicians who dwell on American exceptionalism only dishonor us by suggesting we play dumb to our past.

Americans today don’t know history—even the smart ones who went to Ivy League schools.

History education in schools is so poor that students often enter college ignorant of the past - and leave just as unenlightened.

If I could have anything - you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate - I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs.

Americans are in vital need of the instruction that historians can provide.

When it comes to certain portions of our history, we've just forgotten it all.

I don't think it's such a bad idea that people learn the same history in school. I think it tends to ground people and give them something to respond to and react against.

I had access to books, and I could read... but that more foundational, basic historical awareness, I didn't have any of that.

I love history, and I thought I knew history well, but I was shocked by how little I knew about it.

I don't think you can erase history.

History is not just written by the winners; it's written about them.

Ah, Fist, it’s the curse of history that those who should read them, never do.

There is nothing more dangerous than mislearning the lessons of history.

He [Richard M. Nixon] really gets my juices flowing every time he sticks his head out of the sewer.

History is not ancestral memory or collective tradition. It is what people learned from priests, schoolmasters, the writers of history books, and the compilers of magazine articles and TV programs.

You simply can't understand the present if you don't understand the past. There is no more alarming case study of the consequences of historical ignorance than President Trump.