Historians Quotes · Page 4

Historians are dangerous and capable of turning everything upside down. They have to be watched.

— Nikita Khrushchev

We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.

— Tony Judt

Presidential legacies are valuable things, too valuable to be left up to historians.

— Thomas Frank

The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.

— Ernest Renan

There's so much stuff that the normal person doesn't know that historians know.

— Jay Blades

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

— Edmond de Goncourt

History does not have sides, although historians do.

— Jay Nordlinger

The past in the hands of historians is not what it was.

— Lynn Townsend White, Jr

I have learned more [from Balzac] than from all the professional historians, economists, and statisticians put together.

— Friedrich Engels

Pirate historians have now discovered social history, the branch of history which in the last two decades or so has been the…

— Peter Earle

All that the historians give us are little oases in the desert of time, and we linger fondly in these, forgetting the…

— J. A. Spender

I retained no records and I am not a good writer anyhow. So the best approach is for historians like you to…

— Shunroku Hata

All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is…

— Henry Louis Gates

Economists tend to think they are much, much smarter than historians, than everybody. And this is a bit too much because at…

— Thomas Piketty

The beauty of history is that historians have the ability to find patterns, the big picture. When you make a movie, you…

— Oliver Stone

My favorite thing is talking to people about history - that's what I like doing. The sort of history I do isn't…

— Lucy Worsley

“since historians must and ought to be exact, truthful, and absolutely free of passions, for neither interest, fear, rancor, nor affection should…

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“You see, I have been at revaluing myself in the last few days. I may have some value to historians because I…

— John Steinbeck

When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all…

— Leo Tolstoy

I wrote about World War II because I didn't understand it. I think that's the reason that historians are drawn to any…

— Nicholson Baker

As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what…

— Margaret Atwood

Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need…

— Steven Van Zandt

Historians turning their hands to fiction are all the rage. Since Alison Weir led the way in 2006, an ever-growing number of…

— Saul David

I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys. I could tell…

— Boyd K. Packer

“An ambitious freshman congresswoman demanded funding to put a public historian in every zip code in the country, a correction for what…

— Danielle Evans

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that…

— Peter Drucker

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might…

— Christopher Hitchens

I think certain periods of history don't get dealt with because I think historians, and it's their job, but they look back…

— Steven Knight

Concerned to reconstruct past ideas, historians must approach the generation that held them as the anthropologist approaches an alien culture. They must,…

— Thomas Kuhn

“History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other." [ 1880 ]”

— Max Beerbohm

God cannot alter the past, that is why he is obliged to connive at the existence of historians

— Samuel Butler

Truth is with the victors-who, as you know, also controls the historians.

— Rolf Hochhuth

Historians write favorably, you know, for example, about Stalin because he was doing big things.

— Jonah Goldberg

As historians, our training and discipline is based on documentary evidence,.

— David Dixon

We cannot leave history entirely to nonclinical observers and to professional historians.

— Erik Erikson

Bitter people are like historians they cant forget the past.

— Missyrie

Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.

— Samuel Butler

Historians are dangerous people. They are capable of upsetting everything.

— Nikita Khrushchev

“Historians pick and choose and every one of them picks and chooses the same thing.”

— Isaac Asimov

Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes.

— Robert the Bruce