“In our society, we don not study history to understand the process of change but just to entertain ourselves with past events. For this reason, history is not regarded as a useful subject. The history that we teach in our educational institutions is political history and, as such, it is used by the ruling classes.”

“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”

“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.”

“Calvin: History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
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“History and the past should be a mirror for us to reflect on our own ugliness, shortcomings and depravity. Not just to preen and beautify ourselves.”

“I wonder if time-traveling cultures are playing with us. I wonder if they process our history for entertainment values.”

“I suspect that teaching the history of our subject is less frequent in our institutions than it was. We are getting short-sighted both in looking forward and in looking backward, to our detriment.”

“The sad fact is how easily we forget the great events of the past. What we don't really learn from history education at school is how important it is for us to learn to never forget history as President Soekarno once said.”

“Our children, it seems to me, learn the history of events, but are woefully unversed in the history of thought… The result of this kind of teaching is to diminish all respect for intellect, reason and experience.”

“Followers of another political party tell us that we will strengthen ourselves by ignoring our history, our traditions, our mythologies, our culture and vision, and by following the American way.”