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The purpose of history is to explain the present—to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power—profound power. The power to define a whole society.

— Michael Crichton Timeline (1999)

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More quotes by Michael Crichton

We are all assumed, these days, to reside at one extreme of the opinion spectrum, or another.

Hence the familiar ideas continue to be repeated, long past their demonstrable validity.

I want to mention in passing that punditry has undergone a subtle change over the years.

The romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature.

Environmentalism as a Religion (2003)

This polarization of the issues has contributed greatly to our national paralysis, because it posits false choices which stifle debate essential to change.

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Crichton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.