Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think is the subtitle to this thought provoking book on what is seems we are not learning from history. The author clearly has an agenda and that is to try and get citizens of the USA to wake up from self-serving apathy and heed to principle coined by Andy Stanley as it regards the path on which our great country is traveling – “your direction, not your intention, determines your destination. The way that Andrews goes about prodding his readers is by reviewing a few major and horrific events in history, primarily focussing on Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. At every moment, the oppressed greatly outnumber the oppressors; nonetheless, they were led as sheep to the slaughter with very few instances of rebellion. How can this be? The answers the book uncovers are ridiculously intriguing. This is a highly recommended read if for no other purpose than to learn and look at history in a new way.
A few quotes from the book are:
- Today, most of us don’t even have front porches. We have retreated to the backyard, where a single opinion can be isolated and enforced by a privacy fence.
- The past is what is real and true, while history is merely what someone recorded.
- “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one.” Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler’s autobiography)
- Any country can survive having chosen a fool as their leader. But history has shown time and time again that a nation of fools is surely doomed.
- The quality of one’s answers can only be determined by the quality of one’s questions.
- “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
- “Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.” – President James A. Garfield (in his centennial address to Congress in 1876)
- Past performance serves to reveal future behavior.
- “Does adversity build character?… It does not. Almost all people can stand adversity of one sort or another. If you want to test a person’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln to Joan of Arc in the book The Final Summit
- Some of the most intelligent leaders in history have brought disaster to their nations because intelligence is powerless to modify character.
- Very few of us intentionally connect the truth of the past with the realities of where we have ended up today.
- “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” – Adolf Hitler