Random Thoughts on the Subject of History by Assorted Sages and Soothsayers
“Unfortunately, I have lived long enough to know that history is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.”
~ Henry Stimson (Secretary of War, 1945) [One of many military / political leaders who knew that the atomic bomb was unnecessary to Japan’s surrender]
“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it”
~ George Orwell
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“
~ George Santayana, 1905
“In totalitarian societies “truth” is not discovered by research, education, discussion, debate and the scientific method, but is merely announced by the authorities“
~ F.A. Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom
“The Only Duty we Have to History is to Rewrite it”
~ Oscar Wilde
“What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on.”
~ Voltaire
“What We Learn From History is that We Don’t Learn From History”
~ Clarence Darrow
“History is written by the victors.”
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”
~ Winston Churchill [with certain irony, having been a “victor”]
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of these acts will be written the history of this generation.
~ Robert F. Kennedy, Cape Town University, South Africa, 1966
“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.”
~ George Carlin, greatest politically savvy comedian ever
Continue on . . .
LBJ: Master of Deceit 