AtomicQuote

Joseph J. Ellis Quote

Hindsight history, sometimes call counterfactual history, is usually not history at all, but most often a condescending game of oneupmanship in which the living play political tricks on the dead, who are not around to defend themselves.

Joseph J. Ellis

Hindsight history, sometimes call counterfactual history, is usually not history at all, but most often a condescending game of oneupmanship in which the living play political tricks on the dead, who are not around to defend themselves.

Tags: history, truth

Related Quotes

You make name for yourself when you overcome pain, weakness, laziness and ignorance

Sunday Adelaja

You make name for yourself when you overcome pain, weakness, laziness and ignorance

Tags: calling, fact, fame, famous, hard work, history, ignorance, laziness, life, pain

That's what drives science though: trying to find out the way things are, the way they were, and the way it really works. If that is your goal, then you want to make sure that your information is accu...

Aron Ra

That's what drives science though: trying to find out the way things are, the way they were, and the way it really works. If that is your goal, then you want to make sure that your information is accu...

Tags: accuracy, history, myths, science, skepticism, skepticism and religion, skepticism of religion, skeptics, truth

Even so have I given the womb of the earth to those that be sown in it in their times.

Compton Gage

Even so have I given the womb of the earth to those that be sown in it in their times.

Tags: apocalypse, apocalyptic, books, change, death, dreams, education, faith, fear, freedom

Its really hard to recall the day you became friends with special people.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Its really hard to recall the day you became friends with special people.

Tags: care, caring, cash, charm, departure, flashback, forget, forgetful, forgetfulness, forgotten

Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more tim...

Christopher Hitchens

Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more tim...

Tags: 1968, 1970s, 1980s, 1988, allegiance, arguments, arrest, bad crowds, boredom, bureaucracy

He shall rule, whom they look not for that dwell upon the earth, and the fowls shall take their flight away together:

Compton Gage

He shall rule, whom they look not for that dwell upon the earth, and the fowls shall take their flight away together:

Tags: apocalypse, apocalyptic, books, change, death, dreams, education, faith, fear, freedom

Empowered Women 101: The moment you ignore bad behavior, in order to win a person's affection you have not won anything, but a person that has behavioral problems. If you couldn't fix their behavior b...

Shannon L. Alder

Empowered Women 101: The moment you ignore bad behavior, in order to win a person's affection you have not won anything, but a person that has behavioral problems. If you couldn't fix their behavior b...

Tags: bad behavior, behavior problems, blinded, history, ignore, issues, men, overlook, stayingpositiveu com

That was 1993 grunge in suburbia. This was 2003 hell in Harlem. (Dark City Lights)

Eve Kagan

That was 1993 grunge in suburbia. This was 2003 hell in Harlem. (Dark City Lights)

Tags: 90s, anthologies, city life, comedy, funny, grunge, harlem, history, humor, humorous

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle...

Carl Sagan

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle...

Tags: capitalism, corruption, government, history, oppression, power, rationalization, society

The aim here is not to separate fact from fantasy but to show how each embodies a distinct class of knowledge and how one is deeply implicated in the other.

Constance Penley

The aim here is not to separate fact from fantasy but to show how each embodies a distinct class of knowledge and how one is deeply implicated in the other.

Tags: accuracy, fantasy, history, meaning, popular science, public history, star trek
About Joseph J. Ellis

Joseph John-Michael Ellis III (born July 18, 1943) is an American historian whose work focuses on the lives and times of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won a National Book Award in 1997 and Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History. Both of these books were bestsellers.