“No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture; but modern history is not a very satisfactory side-arm in political polemics; it grows less and less so.”
"Sources of Tolerance" (1930); also in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses (1952), p. 79.
Extra-judicial writings
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Learned Hand 56
American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge 1872–1961Related quotes
“History can never be covered up. AZ Quotes”
As quoted in [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/04/23/china-org China.org in New Yorker (23 April, 2001).
Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1882/may/16/ireland-irish-policy-of-the-government#column_836 in the House of Commons (16 May 1882) denouncing the Kilmainham Treaty
Backbench MP
“One may quote bad poetry if it is by a great poet.”
On peut citer de mauvais vers, quand ils sont d'un grand poète.
Letter 4: Le Vicomte de Valmont to la Marquise de Merteuil. Trans. P.W.K. Stone (1961). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_4
Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)
“The slave and master in one skin
Is all your history, no more, no less”
Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)
Context: Why have you been so blind?
Why have you never seen?
The slave and master in one skin
Is all your history, no more, no less
Confess! This is what you've been.
“I do not quote from the scriptures;
I simply see what I see.”
Azfar Hussain translations
New Preface, p. vi
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978)
“The cure to misunderstanding history is to read more, not less.”
Source: Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (6th ed., 2006), Chapter 1, Is There an Enduring Logic of Conflict in World Politics?, p. 19.