No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to

David McCullough
About This Quote

History is a fascinating subject to many people. It's what makes people want to learn about the past, but the fact that it has been made into something that someone would want to do can be a danger. For example, when people write history books, they may add in some facts about important figures in history to make them seem more interesting. The stories of these figures may be altered so that they sound better than they actually were, and the bad things that these figures did may be removed from history books.

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  1. To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile]
  2. Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.
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