You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.
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History
Yesterday is History.
History brings us to this present moment
but it doesn't shape who we are at this present moment.
We can't let our History control us
and who we wish to be.
Our future is our choice,
Not History's.
poem by Tiana Webb

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The History Teacher
Woman!
Where exactly
Did you put me
In the women's history?
Am I History?
Or a part of it?
And for how long you are lacking me in;
Between
Your History,
Women's History, and
Your archives?
Does time make sense to you
As a History teacher or
As a History professor?
Cause', History, buying time, and rejuvenation
Are for emperors.
Are you making me
An emperor?
Or a Faeroe?
If so,
How precise your are?
And if you can't feel my present presence
how possibility could you feel me through your archives?
poem by Atef Ayadi

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History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we made today.
quote by Henry Ford

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Just Be You
When one looks at history
We can either
Learn from the past
To adapt to the present
So you can
Face tomorrow's mysteries
The age old question
We all ask
Can we better ourselves?
To better oneself
You must be brave
To better oneself
You must know love
To better oneself
You must be strong
To better oneself
You must believe
To better oneself
You must learn to share
To better oneself
Just be you
After learning all
Of life's mysteries
One must discover
To be true to
Thine own self
Just be you
poem by Kaila George

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Joy In The Present
I never want to go back
Dwell in the past no more
Another has come I would rather cherish it
I love who I am now
There is no glory in my history
Full of misery
It’s a new dawn
Though my heart trembles with fear
Some great touch of he who is above
Do not panic
I will dread not
I will fear not
He is with me, he’s on the throne
The one who truly loves me
Accepts my past
Joy of the present
History shredded no agony of the trials of the past
Joy of the present with you
poem by Chanda Lena Mondoka

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The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.
quote by Ernest Dimnet

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.
quote by E.L. Doctorow

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today.
quote by Henry Ford

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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History?
Has history taught us nothing
but tales and ancient lies?
All wrapped up in stories
not told us by the wise?
Told by the vicars who consecrated death
Told by the rulers
with power in their breath.
Passed on in written words
in books the masses read,
never questioned, never disputed
in the minds they lead.
Slanted stories still present
right to our present day.
Foes of peace seen as heroes
in ungodly ways
and as we live the history writers
will pen each blazing act
as benificent for these difficult times,
more fiction than true fact.
So those who follow in our steps
will read our history book
and what they read will be fantasy
with a different look.
poem by Edwina Reizer

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The History of Now
The recording of culture is history;
but our culture is more than that.
It's the world of human action,
and the myths we make of the fact.
The recording of history is culture,
but our history is more than that.
It informs a hidden agenda.
Unconscious of motive we act.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
It's only the present that exists as endowed.
It's the history of now. The moment - KAPOW!
That knocks you right over and muddies your brow.
Through the prism of language, we know what we know.
We carry our baggage and stories of woe.
Victor and vanquished pride cannot budge,
the dead weight of hatred and ancestral grudge.
We fight our good fights with our hand on our heart;
the music is swelling as loved ones depart.
As sheep to the slaughter, the script cannot chart,
a course more ignoble: the propagandist's art.
The recording of history is culture,
but our culture is more than that.
More than the great individuals,
the scholars so love in their tracts.
The recording of culture is history;
but our history is more than that.
Not simple dates or statistics,
the full horror and gore still attracts.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
A strange contradiction that makes sense somehow.
It's the history of now, a mystery and shroud.
The past and the future: best fiction allowed.
poem by David SmithWhite

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History is a living horse laughing at a wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key. History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says, if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen again if I can help it.
quote by Carl Sandburg

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A pacifist will often - at least nowadays - be an internationalist and vice versa. But history shows us that a pacifist need not think internationally.
quote by Christian Lous Lange

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Black History Month
In January...
There they are making history.
In February...
There they are making history.
In March...
There they are making history.
In April...
There they are making history.
In May...
There they are making history.
In June...
There they are making history.
In July...
There they are making history.
In August...
There they are making history.
In September...
There they are making history.
In October...
There they are making history.
In November...
There they are making history.
In December...
There they are making history.
But...
It's nice to know
The shortest month of the year
Was chosen to celebrate
The great deeds of African-Americans!
However...
It is those LEAP YEARS,
That really have the blacks jumping for joy!
Note: 'Black History Month' along with other
works of interest can be found in...
*'MindPrints from Untouched Places-VOL I'*
~Now available online at a PC near you~
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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History why do we care
History
a famous person dies
History
a war rages
History
a new invention
History
a building opens
History
what happens if something happens to me
is that history?
no....
So why do we care.....
poem by Andrea Thepoet

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While we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed.
quote by Mattie Stepanek

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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With each new book, the march of our national history takes a step forward. When one is present at a book launch, one is bearing witness to the birth of a new body of ideas, to the coming into being of another testimony of history.
quote by Ibrahim Babangida

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Peace Messenger
Thousand of rulers have come and gone
thousand of conqueror have conquered the world
most of them have become the chapter of history
history has lost some of name
but the history remember those
who have done for the sake of mankind
amongst them one more name will be added
who shall always be remembered
for his solitude administration
to conquer the peace
the messenger of peace of the present world
His Highness name is
Mr.Barack Obama
the Hon'ble President of USA
who is above all race and religion
May God bless him and his family
with Love and Peace.
poem by Ramesh Rai

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What Have We Learned From History
What have we learned from history little if anything
Of war men and war heroes their praises we still sing
Humankind have come far in technology and on the moon surface have trod
And still we fight for our Nation's flag and go to war for our God.
What have we learned from history not much if you ask me
We still have wars and famines and we still have poverty
And we still have this awful thing called ethnic cleansing and we still have refugees
And we still wage war on Mother Earth and we still pollute her seas.
What have we learned from history if anything at all
Before the baby has to walk the baby has to learn to crawl
And life is just a learning curve or so we have been told
But few of those who lack wisdom in their twenties grow wiser as they grow old.
What have we learned from history we have learned to populate
And by bulldozing more virgin woodlands more diseases we create
We pollute Mother Earth who feeds us and our successes seem so few
And that the World would do nicely without us only happens to be true.
What have we learned from history go ask one wiser than I
The World is far more polluted now than when I was a boy
And history has a habit of repeating itself a wise one once did say
And I've not learned from history though I grow old and gray.
poem by Francis Duggan

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We are living the events which for centuries to come will be minutely studied by scholars who will undoubtedly describe these days as probably the most exciting and creative in the history of mankind. But preoccupied with our daily chores, our worries and personal hopes and ambitions, few of us are actually living in the present.
quote by Lawrence K. Frank

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Multicultural Melbourne
Melbourne Immigration Museum
I stroll,
Past history,
Past lives,
Past stories.
I see for the first time MY nation’s history,
My nations courage,
My nations suffering,
My eyes glaze over
And realisation creeps up on me.
I see stories of the past and present,
Played out before me,
The lives of Australia’s people,
Australia’s history
poem by Katie Anne

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