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“History reflects the choices of those who came before us. Studying the past reveals patterns, consequences, and lessons that guide present and future decisions. Awareness equips us to act with purpose and insight.”

—  Shivanshu K. Srivastava

Last update Sept. 26, 2026. History

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Qin Gang photo

“History is our best guide. It faithfully records the past journey, and gives us inspiration for the future.”

Qin Gang (1966) politician

Source: "Keynote Speech by Ambassador Qin Gang at the Commemoration for the 50th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s Visit to China" https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/202203/t20220303_10647768.html (25 February 2021)

John F. Kennedy photo

“There are those who regard this history of past strife and exile as better forgotten. But, to use the phrase of Yeats, let us not casually reduce "that great past to a trouble of fools." For we need not feel the bitterness of the past to discover its meaning for the present and the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Speech to a joint session of the Dail and the Seanad, Dublin, Ireland (28 June 1963)
1963

Max Müller photo

“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

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo

“America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

George Orwell photo

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Vera Stanley Alder photo

“We will endeavour to produce a guide book to progress for those of us who accept this new challenge of adulthood... we will outline the picture of past and present trends of human development.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

John F. Kennedy photo

“The great revolution in the history of man, past, present and future, is the revolution of those determined to be free.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Message to Chairman Khrushchev Concerning the Meaning of Events in Cuba (18 April 1961).
1961

Tom Baker photo

“But we can't escape into the future like we can escape into the past. So those of us who are not certain of things, and there are an awful lot of us, often rush back to the past. And each one has a particular past he prefers to the present. Sometimes I feel that any past is preferable to the present.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

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“These are the materials for reflection which history affords to those who choose to make use of them.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 5
Parallel Lives

Barack Obama photo

“The wall belongs to history. But we have history to make as well. And the heroes that came before us now call to us to live up to those highest ideals”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Brandenburg Gate Speech (June 2013)
Context: The wall belongs to history. But we have history to make as well. And the heroes that came before us now call to us to live up to those highest ideals -- to care for the young people who can't find a job in our own countries, and the girls who aren't allowed to go to school overseas; to be vigilant in safeguarding our own freedoms, but also to extend a hand to those who are reaching for freedom abroad. This is the lesson of the ages. This is the spirit of Berlin. And the greatest tribute that we can pay to those who came before us is by carrying on their work to pursue peace and justice not only in our countries but for all mankind.

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