John Tosh

“How can what is not only dead and gone, but remote and sometimes alien, have any practical bearing on today's world? The answer is that, paradoxically, the value of the past lies precisely in what is different from our world. By giving us another vantage point, it enables us to look at our own circumstances with sharper vision, alert to the possibility that they might have been different, and that they will probably turn out differently in the future.”