The student is to read history actively not passively.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
About This Quote

When you read history, you are supposed to be actively paying attention to what is happening, not just passively let it happen. This quote comes from the book The History of England by Edward Gibbon. He believes that if you read history passively then you won’t learn anything about the past. Instead, he believes that reading history will help you to become active in the present.

Source: Selfreliance And Other Essays

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More Quotes By Ralph Waldo Emerson
  1. Love, and you shall be loved.

  2. He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

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  4. Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

  5. It is not the length of life, but the depth.

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