The sentence that I remember most of all, from Rebecca Sonit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking, is on page 216, where she writes: “The past becomes the foundation on which the future will be built, and those who honor no past may never make a future.”
I was struck by how much truth is behind this statement. How everything we do, all the places we visit and all the events that happen have a past, whether one know about it or not. The past matters, which is obviously when one considers how much time and effort people put into discovering the past. Not just historians or archeologists, but even ordinary people that want to find out about the family tree. People care so much about the past, because it helps us understand the present. The question of where we come from (meaning evolution and family history) helps us figure out, who we are and perhaps also what we want. And only when we have found a satisfactory answer (satisfactory for oneself), can we make plans for the future.
Also, a very important aspect is that people should, or at least try to, learn from their mistakes. If we know the reasons behind a dreadful event, we can try to avoid it. Basically, don’t do the same mistake twice, which is only possible, if we remember that a mistake has been made.