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About this quote

What does it mean?
History is really the stories of individuals, not abstract forces.
In plain terms
History is just stories about people.
What can you take from it?
Focus on individual lives to understand history.

Where it applies

  • historical study
  • learning

Putting it to work

  • read biographies
  • focus on personal stories

Questions to consider

  • Whose story matters most?
  • What is real history?

Another view

Broad trends and systemic forces also matter.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1. History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the necessary r…

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  3. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

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