A Quote by Bill Duke

Without understanding your history, you can't get a perspective about the present. — © Bill Duke
Without understanding your history, you can't get a perspective about the present.
History is contemporary. Your understanding of history confirms what you think of the present. It's not neutral. I would be very surprised if people with a different view of the present, don't take issue with my view of the past. I just hope that people deal with the content of the film.
Understanding the times means understanding the course of history and civilization, as well as understanding the present situation. If we understand how God guides the development of human history, we can begin to understand the therapies needed to correct the problems of our times.
I think that the best movies are made, not from a point of view that depends on your personal history, whether it's the color of your skin or the politics that you had or the place that you come from, but from a point of view of an understanding of human nature, an understanding of history, and an understanding of what motivates people.
Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.
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.
The Greeks really believed in history. They believed that the past had consequences and that you might be punished for the sins of your father. America, and particularly New York, runs on the idea that history doesn't matter. There is no history. There is only the never-ending present. You don't even have your family because you moved here to get away from them, so even that idea of personal history has been cut at the knees.
Is this the curse of modernity, to live in a world without judgment, without perspective, no context for understanding or distinguishing what is real and what is imagined, what is manipulated and what is by chance beautiful, what is shadow and what is flesh?
It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.
The perspective of people who truly believe that abortion is wrong. I understand that, I'm empathetic to that, I get it. But the place where I think we need to come to some kind of an understanding is that... you have your ability to have your own beliefs but the government doesn't play a role in that.
I think it’s very important to live in the present. One of the great things that improvising teaches you is the magic of the moment that you’re in … because when you improvise you’re in right now. You’re not in yesterday or tomorrow—you’re right in the moment. Being in that moment really gives you a perspective of life that you never get at any other time as far as learning about your ego… You have to see your unimportance before you can see your importance and your significance to the world.
We are in a very critical and sensitive time in this nation. We need our president to sit down with folks who have a personal experience, a deep connection to the horror and the pain of this country`s provocative racial history. If the president wants to have a better understanding and appreciation for what he should do next, he needs to hear something from folks who have gone through this painful history. Without that personal connection to the painful past, it will be hard for him to regain that moral authority from my perspective.
Don't let dialog about your company happen without your perspective.
In marriage, it's best to keep perspective. Get out of your head and get some perspective.
Gratitude changes your perspective about life. You see the future, experience the present, and remember the past in a dramatically different way.
I think that whenever soul is present, it's because what you're doing, whom you're with, where you are, evokes love without your thinking about it. You are totally absorbed in the place of person or event, without ego and without judgment.
You can write about a country without taking a stand, but you cannot write about a country without noting that there's history, and that there's politics going on. To me, that's the same if you write about America. You don't have to write about politics, but the politics have to be present in the characters.
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