Quote

The accounts that history presents have to be paid. Past has to be reconciled with present in the life of a nation. History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are. the past cannot be put behind until it is settled with.

William Pfaff

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William Pfaff
Age: 86 †
Born: 1928
Born: December 29
Died: 2015
Died: April 30
Author
Journalist
Soldier
Writer
Council Bluffs
Iowa
History
Accounts
Cannot
Paid
Past
Behinds
Life
Nation
Behind
Insistent
Present
Reconciled
Nations
Settled
Force
Presents

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America's problem is how to free itself from the grip of it's exhausted ideas.
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Europeans believe in democracy - or, at least, in republican government - but they have considered the alternatives, and continue to do so, and that scandalizes Americans.
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The achievement of nationhood is a product not only of time and circumstance but usually of war and suffering as well.
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For four hundred years European civilization has dominated the world - for better or for worse. It is convenient, and flattering, for Americans to assume that this is all over but it very rash to do so.
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It is one of the perceptual defects of Western government and press to assign Western-style motives to what people do in non-Western societies, as if these are universally relevant.
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