History

Today in Western Civ., Dr. Scalberg had a great lecture, as I assume he always will, and he shared these quotes.

"Our times and our thoughts are largely shaped y the past. That shaping is one reason we study history. How we think, how we react to the occasions of daily life, the vocabulary we use in speaking of the past - are all legacies. To study the past may help us understand better how we came to be who we are.... By showing us that our lives are historically conditioned, we discover a certain freedom. We know that what is does not have to be this way."
Richard Marius of Harvard University in his A Short Guide to Writing about History (1995), p. 7.

"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development."
Aristotle - 4th century B.C.

"The value of history is that it teaches us what humanity has done and thus what humanity is."
R.G. Collingwood (d. 1943) - Oxford University

"A country without a memory is a country of madmen."
George Santayana (d. 1952) - Harvard University

"History, therefore is vital to our human existence. To have no story is, almost, to have no life. People suffering from amnesia or Alzheimer's can live and function, but they live pitiable lives because they have lost contact with their own story. When societies and cultures lose contact with their own stories, they are also pitiable."
R. Wells, History Through the Eyes of Faith (Harper & Row) page 1.



It is for this reason I am glad I am a history major.