Quote of the Day (John Dos Passos, on History’s Use in ‘Times of Change and Danger’)

“In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”—American novelist John Dos Passos (1896-1970), “The Use of the Past” (1941), reprinted in The Theme Is Freedom (1956)

Quote of the Day (John Dos Passos, on History as the ‘Daydream of a Race’)

“It seems to me that history is always more alive and more interesting than fiction. I suppose that is because a story is the daydream of a single man, while history is a mass invention, the daydream of a race.”—Novelist/historian John Dos Passos (1896-1970) quoted in Donald Pizer, Dos Passos’ USA: A Critical Study (1988)

Quote of the Day (John Dos Passos, on History, a ‘Lifeline Across the Scary Present’)

“In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present.”—John Dos Passos, The Ground We Stand On: The History of a Political Creed (1941)