It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience. (52) Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation as well as for individual. History should forever remind us of the limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead us to recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more various than the human intellect is designed to conceive. (53) A nation informed by a vivid understanding of the ironies of history is best equipped to manage the tragic temptations of military power. Let us not bully our way through life, but let a sensitivity to history temper and civilize our use of power. In the meantime, let a thousand historical flowers bloom. (54) History is never a closed book or a final verdict. It is forever in the interests of an ideology, a religion, a race, and a nation. The great strength of history is its capacity for self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing: the search to reconstruct what went before. (55) A nation's history must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its citizens. (31)