As an avid collector of quotes, I often run across quotes from people with whom I disagree. Usually, I'll just pass over the quote and not give it a second thought, but I saw one in my newspaper yesterday, on the final page, that I couldn't resist commenting about.
Here's the quote: "History is simply a piece of paper covered with print; the main thing is still to make history, not to write it." – Otto von Bismarck, German statesman (1815-1898).
I don't have the context of these remarks, so it's hard to know for certain whether von Bismarck was making a blanket statement about all of history or whether he was exaggerating to make about point about the necessity of doing the "main thing" to which we are called. In either case, I couldn't disagree with him more.
History is not simply a piece of paper covered with print. Every action (or non action) has a cause and effect. The sacrifices or indulgences of one generation directly influence the next. That is true whether or not history is accurately recorded, but the current generation is absolutely indebted to the next to accurately depict the historical events of their lifetime.
Yes, man is sinful and continually tempted to write history in such a fashion that it favors himself, or at least soften the blows when he has gone astray. But to impersonalize history as simply being words on a page does a disservice to the art of capturing history.
And while the "main thing is…to make history" for some people, the main thing for others is to record history. Not everybody is destined to "make history" and if nobody took the time to write it, then, ironically, we wouldn't even be having this discussion because von Bismarck's quote wouldn't have been preserved for the ages. His words would have died with him.
