“In an incredibly short time, we have been turned into a nation without heroes, without pride in our past or knowledge of either our past triumphs or our past follies and disasters. We are like an amnesia patient, waking up in the hospital ward, with both past and future great blank spaces stretching behind and before us, doomed to repeat mistakes we do not even know we have already made.”

Source: From 'The Abolition of Britain' (1999), p. 62-63

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 "In an incredibly short time, we have been turned into a nation without heroes, without pride in our past or knowledge o…" by Peter Hitchens?
Peter Hitchens photo
Peter Hitchens 22
author, journalist 1951

Related quotes

John Steinbeck photo

“We never escape our past. It is mirrored in our present. It repeats itself in our future.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Marius Melville in Ch. 17
Cassidy (1986)

George Bernard Shaw photo
Malcolm X photo

“Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Speech at Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964), as quoted in By Any Means Necessary (1970)
By Any Means Necessary (1970)

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We face the future with our past and our present as guarantors of our promises; and we are content to stand or to fall by the record which we have made and are making.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Address at Oyster Bay, New York (27 July 1904) http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/txtspeeches/104.txt, in response to the committee appointed to notify him of his nomination for the Presidency.
1900s

Malcolm X photo

“Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Speech at Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964), as quoted in By Any Means Necessary (1970)
By any means necessary: speeches, interviews, and a letter (1970)
Context: Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past.

Terry Brooks photo
Pierre Trudeau photo

“The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Statement of 1970, as quoted in profile at the Canadian Museum of Civilizations http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/biography/biographi270e.shtml, also quoted in York University: The Way Must Be Tried (2008) by Michiel Horn, p. 4

Related topics