Donald Kagan Quotes

• Without history we are the prisoners of the accident of where and when we were born.

  Donald Kagan

  Born, Prisoner, Accidents

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• War has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states

  Donald Kagan

  War, World, Common

  Donald Kagan (1996). “On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace”, Anchor

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• All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.

  Donald Kagan

  Ignorance, Past, America

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• You have to liberate yourself first from the prejudices of the world in which you live.

  Donald Kagan

  Prejudice, World, Firsts

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.

  Donald Kagan

  Taken, People, Different

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• I can see that you [Bruce Cole] are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a different place or a different time: What's the same and what's different?

  Donald Kagan

  Different, Historian, Ought

  "On Learning from the Greeks". Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. 2005.

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• From the time I was a little boy I found myself reading history when I had a choice. I read a lot of things, but history had a special appeal for me.

  Donald Kagan

  Reading, Boys, Choices

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• History had its own way of explaining things. The way historians explain things is by telling a story.

  Donald Kagan

  Stories, Way, Explaining

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics.

  Donald Kagan

  Greek, Degrees, Certain

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2005.

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• In Our Underachieving Colleges, [Derek] Bok acts as both diagnostician and healer, wielding social-science statistics and professional studies to trace the etiology of today's illnesses and to recommend palliative treatments for what he has discovered.

  Donald Kagan

  College, Statistics, Today

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