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The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.

— George F. Kennan

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History

More quotes by George F. Kennan

Reading, in contrast to sitting before the screen, is not a purely passive exercise.

For the love of God, for the love of your children and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 37 (1981)

Although the Georgian nationalists do not like Stalin, they have every reason to be thankful to him.

World communism is like a malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue.

I have never been any good at training children or dogs; that is why I am no good at training myself.

All George F. Kennan quotes →

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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: George F. Kennan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.