Quote

I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.

Howard Zinn

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Howard Zinn
Age: 87 †
Born: 1922
Born: August 24
Died: 2010
Died: January 27
Film Director
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Labor Historian
Pacifist
Peace Activist
Playwright
Brooklyn
New York
Political
Recorder
Part
Recorders
Wanted
Informed
Writing
Towards
Kind
Teaching
Always
Teacher
Attitude
History

More quotes by Howard Zinn

Image
We better rethink the position of the United States in the world and whether we want to be an empire. Being an empire puts all of us in jeopardy. The American Empire, while it was just wreaking havoc on other nations, didn't bother us.
Howard Zinn
Image
George Orwell said, Whoever controls the past controls the future, by which he meant that history is incredibly important in shaping the world view of the next generation of people.
Howard Zinn
Image
In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.
Howard Zinn
Image
Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is.
Howard Zinn
Image
Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life. - Jon Kabat
Howard Zinn
Image
I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulation of knowledge, while fascinating in itself, is not sufficient as long as so many people in the world have no opportunity to experience that fascination.
Howard Zinn
Image
The only way things will happen is if people get over the notion that they must see immediate success. If they get over that notion and persist, then they will see things happen before they even realize it.
Howard Zinn
Image
I believe that it is preferable sometimes to have one candidate rather another candidate, while you understand that that is not the solution. Sometimes the lesser evil is not so lesser, so you want to ignore that, and you either do not vote or vote for third party as a protest against the party system.
Howard Zinn
Image
The United States builds weapons presumably secretly, and then it sells them to other countries. So the whole business of secrecy is kind of a fake issue because hardly anything technological remains a secret for very long.
Howard Zinn
Image
We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.
Howard Zinn
Image
The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.
Howard Zinn
Image
Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.
Howard Zinn
Image
The democratic principle, enunciated in the words of the Declaration of Independence, declared that government was secondary, that the people who established it were primary. Thus, the future of democracy depended on the people, and their growing consciousness of what was the decent way to relate to their fellow human beings all over the world.
Howard Zinn
Image
War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.
Howard Zinn
Image
Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?
Howard Zinn
Image
Terrorism and war have something in common. They both involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the killers believe is a good end.
Howard Zinn
Image
When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.
Howard Zinn
Image
It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism. But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?
Howard Zinn
Image
I have come to believe that our lives can be turned in a different direction, our minds adopt a different way of thinking, by some significant, though small event. That belief can be frightening, or exhilarating, depending on whether you just contemplate it or do something with it.
Howard Zinn
Image
Even if you assume presidents were democratically elected they still have no right to keep secrets from the American people.
Howard Zinn