E.P. Thompson

"Historical understanding is a dialogue between present and past."

"The making of working-class consciousness was one of the most important historical processes."

"Institutions that lack moral legitimacy will eventually provoke resistance."

"The preservation of cultural memory is a form of political action."

"We must recognize the agency and creativity of those whose names history does not record."

"The boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior are historically contingent."

"Authentic solidarity grows from shared experience and mutual respect."

"History without moral feeling is mere antiquarianism."

"The rhythms of traditional life were disrupted but not destroyed by industrial capitalism."

"Understanding the past requires us to challenge our own assumptions."

"Power operates through ideas and beliefs as much as through force."

"The common people have always been the true makers of history."

"We must respect the integrity and complexity of historical experience."

"The future is always open, always being made by human choices and actions."

"Communities organized through kinship and tradition developed their own forms of resistance."

"The transformation of consciousness is a slow process that cannot be rushed."

"We should seek to understand the world as it appeared to those who lived in it."

"The making of class identity involved the whole cultural and moral life of people."

"Justice requires that we remember those whom power has sought to forget."

"The study of history should make us humble about our knowledge and open to revision."

"Human agency is constrained but not determined by material circumstances."

"The past lives on in the present through memory, tradition, and struggle."

"We must honor the struggles of those who came before us."

"The formation of communities of solidarity is among the most important of human achievements."

"The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was created by hasty and unplanned processes."

"Protest and anger preceded the formation of working-class consciousness."

"We must rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the 'obsolete' hand-loom weaver from the enormous condescension of posterity."

"History is not a set of predetermined outcomes but a field of human agency and struggle."

"The discipline of work imposed an entirely new rhythm upon working life."

"Custom and tradition held immense power over the minds of ordinary people."