“It is true that one of the first acts of tyrants is to erase history, to wipe out the recorded memory of a people. With that in mind, it's important to remember that the work that we do as writers, artists and performers will form an essential part of the collective memory that future generations will draw upon. And so we owe it to those future generations to defend that memory and be honest witnesses to our times.”

—  Rene Balcer

In a speech to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, 12/8/09: On the duties of artists.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is true that one of the first acts of tyrants is to erase history, to wipe out the recorded memory of a people. With…" by Rene Balcer?
Rene Balcer photo
Rene Balcer 22
screenwriter, producer and director 1954

Related quotes

“This time during the Second World War is part of my history, part of my memory, but it is the latest part of my memory, so the memories of each human being goes much more back, it goes to the dinosaurs, even later [Kiefer means: earlier].... I think we even remember geological times. So this is one little part of our / of mine memory”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

the Second World War
n.p.
Tim Marlow joins Anselm Kiefer to discuss his work' - 2005

Patrick Pearse photo

“To his teaching we owe it there is such a thing as Irish Nationalism and to the memory of the deed he nerved his generation to do, to the memory of ‘98, we owe it that there is any manhood left in Ireland.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

Address delivered at the Grave of Wolfe Tone in Bodenstown Churchyard, Co. Kildare, 22 June 1913

Jacob Bronowski photo

“With the… symbolic memory we spell out the future—not one but many futures, which we weigh one against another.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

Oliver Lodge photo

“Our memories are thronged with the past; our anticipations range over the future; and it is in the past and the future that we really live. It is so even with the higher animals: they too order their lives by memory and anticipation.”

Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) British physicist

Raymond, p. 312 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t80k3mq4s;view=1up;seq=354
Raymond, or Life and Death (1916)

“History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Times (1993) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 247

Reggie Watts photo

“The future states that there is no time other than the collapsation of that sensation of the mirror of the memories in which we are living. Common knowledge, but important nonetheless.”

Reggie Watts (1972) singer, musician and comedian

Cited in: Beats That Defy Boxes: Reggie Watts at TED 2012 https://www.ted.com/talks/reggie_watts_disorients_you_in_the_most_entertaining_way. Posted February 2012.

Yan Lianke photo

“Anything negative about the country or the regime will be rapidly erased from the collective memory. This memory deletion is being carried out by censoring newspapers, magazines, television news, the Internet and anything that preserves memories.”

Yan Lianke (1958) Chinese novelist and satirist

"On China's State-Sponsored Amnesia"

Pope Francis photo

“We must not place the burden on the next generations to take on the problems caused by the previous ones. Instead, we should give them the opportunity to remember our generation as the one that renewed and acted on — with honest, responsible and courageous awareness — the fundamental need to collaborate in order to preserve and cultivate our common home. May we offer the next generation concrete reasons to hope and work for a good and dignified future!”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Message to the Participants in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1 December 2019) http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2019/documents/papa-francesco_20191201_messaggio-carolina-schmidt.html
2010s, 2019

Eric R. Kandel photo

“O'Keefe… argued that many forms of explicit memory (for example, memory for people and objects) use spatial coordinates… we typically remember people and events in a spatial context.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

Related topics