A Quote by Annie Leonard
The power that comes from knowing the facts of history is dwarfed by the power that comes from being able to shape the stories about how that history is written and told.
Related Quotes
The power of the story sheds a light and great perspective on well known facts. The power of cinema draws on that collective history.
Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.
The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the processes of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties.
The purpose of history is to explain the present - to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power - profound power. The power to define a whole society.
I love telling stories. I think of myself as a storyteller, and I don't feel bound by being just a singer or an actress. First, I'm a storyteller, and history is stories - the most compelling stories. There is a lot you can find out about yourself through knowing about history. I have always been attracted to things that are old. I have just always found such things interesting and compelling.
Do not feel trapped by the facts of your history. Your history is not some set of sacred facts. History is an interpretation, and your history is yours to interpret. To know the history and then reinterpret it gives you additional depth.
It has been said, "History is written by the victors." I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history.
What I really love is modern political history. I love the research process, whether it's digging through old newspaper stories, artifacts from election campaigns or TV stories and being able to recreate moments in history that - when you look back at them now - you can get to that question of how did we get here.
We give you the facts. I told you information is power - knowledge is power. We can't be in an ideological battle to redeem the soul of this country if we don't have the facts.
How [stories] are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told — are really dependent on power.
The art of writing history is the art of emphasizing the significant facts at the expense of the insignificant. And it is the same in every field of knowledge. Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about.
I'm not sure why, but I seem to be drawn to stories about abuses of power. But I'm also drawn, not so much to victims' stories, as stories that tend to show how power works. Because if you don't understand the criminals, you can't figure out how to stop the crimes.
I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives.
If you don't know your history, you don't have an idea how you channel things in your life. Knowing that history, I was able to fulfil my goals.
There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.
Many people don’t realize the extent to which stories influence our behavior and even shape our culture. Think about how Bible stories teach the fundamentals of religion and rules of conduct. Think of the fables and parables that molded your values. Think of how stories about your national, cultural or family history have shaped your attitudes about yourself and others.
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