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Ken Burns

"I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now."

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"I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now."

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Asa Don Brown

"Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It's a crime."Fuka-Eri thought about that for a moment.Tengo went on, "Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves."

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Asa Don Brown

"Mankind, not womankind, has slaughtered more humans in the name of God and Religion than for any other reason."

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Asa Don Brown

"Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself."

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Asa Don Brown

"Most of Jesus' life is told through the four Gospels of the New Testament, known as the Canonical gospels, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are not biographies in the modern sense but accounts with allegorical intent. They are written to engender faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the incarnation of God, and not to provide factual data about Jesus's life. This left the door of exaggeration open. And through that door all kinds of mystical non-sense crept in and made place right alongside the good philosophical teachings of Jesus."

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Asa Don Brown

"It must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom's specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery."

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Asa Don Brown

"You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know."

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Asa Don Brown

"There probably was a time when the idea of having a toilet inside a house was repulsive."

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Asa Don Brown

"All the bloodsheds in human history have been caused by men, not women."

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Asa Don Brown

"History isn't just the story of bad people doing bad things. It's quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong."

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Asa Don Brown

"The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4."

Explore more quotes by Ken Burns

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Ken Burns
"I have made all my films for my children with the exception of my first film because my oldest daughter wasn't born when I was making the film about the Brooklyn Bridge."
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Ken Burns
"You don't work on something for six years and be blind to the myriad of other approaches."
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Ken Burns
"History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions."
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Ken Burns
"I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever."
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Ken Burns
"The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts."
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Ken Burns
"I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement."
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Ken Burns
"I never, ever want to apologize for a film. If it's bad I'll say it's my fault. And that's what I can say so far in all the films that I've done, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault."
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Ken Burns
"Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America."
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Ken Burns
"I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content."
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Ken Burns
"You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time."
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