“It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Brian Friel2

Irish dramatist, author and theatre director 1929–2015

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“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. These are often as highly structured and selective as myths. Images and symbolic constructs of the past are imprinted, almost in the manner of genetic information, on our sensibility. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"The Great Ennui".
In Bluebeard's Castle (1971)

“The fact remains that there are probable past events that can "still happen" within your personal previous experience. A new event can literally be born in the past -- "now."”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Nature of Personal Reality (1974), p. 355: session 654: April 9, 1973

“Our past may shape us, but it doesn't define us.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Variant: Our past may shape us, but it doesn't define who we become.
Source: Night Star

“If history is to teach us anything, it must teach us that there is a continuity which binds together the present and the past, the East and the West. And no branch of history teaches that lesson more powerfully than the history of language and the history of religion.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

“The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to
release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the
clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our
spirit.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

“The accounts that history presents have to be paid. Past has to be reconciled with present in the life of a nation. History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are. the past cannot be put behind until it is settled with.”

William Pfaff (1928–2015) American journalist

Source: Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends (1989), Chapter 1, Dead Stars, p. 3.

“I think it is a natural impulse to look to your own past and history to discover the stories that move and inspire you. The problem is that the past is nebulous and waiting for a shape. What ultimately gives it form and context is the present. That’s the part of writing inspired by personal history that is exciting to me.”

Stephanie Powell Watts

On using personal history in “Fruits of the Same Tree: An Interview with Stephanie Powell Watts” https://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/an-interview-with-stephanie-powell-watts/ in Fiction Writers Review (2012 Aug 6)

“Our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of the past.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: (1940), II

“Real independence is a time of new and active creation: people sure enough of themselves to discard their baggage; knowing the past is past, as shaping history, but with a new confident sense of the present and the future, where the decisive meanings and values will be made.”

Raymond Williams (1921–1988) philosopher

1975

“Our understanding of history and the country is shaped by the images the survive.”

Kate Williams (historian) (1974) British historian

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1356274/memory-lane-personal-memories-pictures-photographs
Your personal Memory Lane is a treasure trove of fantastic memories, says KATE WILLIAMS
The Express
5 November 2020
2 May 2021

“It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”

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Brian Friel2

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