If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- History offers lessons, but human passion and political bias prevent us from seeing them. Experience only shows us what has already happened, not what lies ahead.
- In plain terms
- We ignore historical lessons because emotion and bias block our view, leaving experience to only illuminate the past.
- What can you take from it?
- Past experience guides us backward, not forward, unless we overcome bias.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What biases blind your view of current events?
- How do you separate experience from passion?
Another view
Sometimes immediate crises force action regardless of historical lessons.
More from Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket: let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from rec…
Permalink to quote #140 The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous.
Permalink to quote #142 He told me that facts gave birth to, and were the absolute ground of, principles; to which I said, that unless he had a principle of selection, he would not ha…
Permalink to quote #139
Related quotes
All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.
Martin Van BurenMartin Van Buren quote #2 Experience is the only prophesy of wise men.
Alphonse de LamartineAlphonse de Lamartine quote #7 La calidad de un pintor depende de la cantidad de pasado que lleve consigo.
Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso quote #12