Ken Burns Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past

  Ken Burns

  Inspiring, Past, Arrogance

  41 Copy quote

• Do something that will last and be beautiful. It doesn't have to be a bridge-or a symphony or book or a business. It could be the look in the eye of a child you raise or a simple garden you tend. Do something that will last and be beautiful.

  Ken Burns

  Beautiful, Children, Book

  41 Copy quote

• People tend to forget that the word "history" contains the word "story".

  Ken Burns

  People, History, Stories

  21 Copy quote

• The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

  Ken Burns

  Music, Country, Art

  48 Copy quote

• History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.

  Ken Burns

  Past, History, Who We Are

  25 Copy quote

• There are no ordinary lives.

  Ken Burns

  Ordinary, Ordinary Life

  "Ken Burns On “The Worst War Ever". Interview with Dave Gilson, www.motherjones.com. August 24, 2007.

  10 Copy quote

• 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 an active disengagement.

  Ken Burns

  Fear, Thinking, Safety

  "Ken Burns — Searching for the Soul of America". Interview with Mark Gerzon, www.lionsroar.com. June 13, 2016.

  36 Copy quote

• Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, "God in us."

  Ken Burns

  Mean, Greek, Etymology

  "Ken Burns to Stanford Grads: Trump Is 'an Insult to Our History'". time.com. June 13, 2016.

  28 Copy quote

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

  Ken Burns

  Views, Who We Are

  13 Copy quote

• We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.

  Ken Burns

  Wise, Past, Echoes

  12 Copy quote

• Write: write letters. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving immortality.

  Ken Burns

  Children, Writing, Letters

  5 Copy quote

• The reason why you do history, and particularly why you do war, is that you want to make sure that in the next war, some lessons were learned. There's a saying: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Or Ecclesiastes: "What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again." Human nature always superimposes itself - its strength and its frailty over the rush of chaos of ongoing events - and we can perceive patterns and themes and motifs.

  Ken Burns

  War, Done, Chaos

  Source: www.esquire.com

  5 Copy quote

• There is no communication in this world except between equals.

  Ken Burns

  Communication, World, This World

  4 Copy quote

• I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I've chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still lifes or landscapes.

  Ken Burns

  Artist, Landscape, Might

  10 Copy quote

• Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.

  Ken Burns

  Past, Historical, Survival

  16 Copy quote

• I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

  Ken Burns

  Events, Add, Realization

  "Commencement Address at Washington University in St. Louis" by Ken Burns, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 18, 2015.

  14 Copy quote

• I am passionately interested in understanding how my country works. And if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War.

  Ken Burns

  Country, War, America

  14 Copy quote

• History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions.

  Ken Burns

  Halloween, Light, Challenges

  59 Copy quote

• The only art form that Americans have created that's recognized around the world is jazz music born in a community that had the peculiar experience of being unfree in a free land.

  Ken Burns

  Art, Land, Community

  "Ken Burns and Yusef Salaam Talk THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE; Plus Burns Talks Upcoming Projects like THE ROOSEVELTS, JACKIE ROBINSON and VIETNAM". Interview with Sheila Roberts, collider.com. November 17, 2012.

  10 Copy quote

• I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.

  Ken Burns

  Drama, Past, Interesting

  17 Copy quote

• I don't think that there has been a film that I've done that hasn't been influenced by libraries and archives.

  Ken Burns

  Thinking, Library, Archives

  14 Copy quote

• I wake the dead. I bring Jackie Robinson and the Roosevelts to life. Who do you think Im trying to wake up?

  Ken Burns

  Thinking, Trying, Wake Up

  9 Copy quote

• By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

  Ken Burns

  Music, Jazz, Jazz Music

  18 Copy quote

• World War II is smothered in sentimentality and nostalgia. What's interesting about Vietnam is that sentimentality is just not there, so you're given kind of a clean access to it in one way. It's also a war that represents a failure for the United States. Many people came back feeling like they never wanted to talk about it again. And so we developed a national amnesia.

  Ken Burns

  War, Interesting, People

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  4 Copy quote

• We all think that an exception is going to be made in our case and were going to live forever. Being a human is actually arriving at the understanding that thats not going to be. Story is there to remind us that its just OK.

  Ken Burns

  Thinking, Forever, Understanding

  15 Copy quote

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