---
title: "2 Documentation Quotes By Simon Schama"
description: "2 Documentation quotes by Simon Schama. Plus more from Simon Schama and more Documentation sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a88/simon-schama-4492_about_the-elephantine-papyri-written-as-some-o_437400.png"
---

> [The Elephantine papyri - written as some of the books of the Bible are being written - is true social and legal documentation, and to historians overwhelmingly powerful and moving, even when ostensibly about trivial things.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/the-elephantine-papyri-written-as-some-of-the-books-of-the-bible-are/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a88/simon-schama-4492_about_the-elephantine-papyri-written-as-some-o_437400.png)

> [Historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness however thorough or revealing their documentation. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/historians-are-left-forever-chasing-shadows-painfully-aware-of-their/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/17f/simon-schama-4492_around-the-corner_historians-are-left-forever-chasing-shad_2871055.jpg)

## More by Simon Schama

> [Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/histories-never-conclude-they-just-pause-their-prose-their-stories/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [The difficulty with poetry is that it doesn't have the life that Shakespeare or Jane Austen have beyond the page. You can't make a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/the-difficulty-with-poetry-is-that-it-doesn-t-have-the-life-that/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [Taxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/taxation-the-very-thing-that-had-triggered-the-british-civil-wars/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [Anyone can write an academic piece directed at other academics. To write something that delivers an argument and a gripping storyline to someone's granny…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/anyone-can-write-an-academic-piece-directed-at-other-academics-to/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [In its Greek origins, historia meant inquiry, and from Thucydides onwards, the past has been studied to understand its connections with the present.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/in-its-greek-origins-historia-meant-inquiry-and-from-thucydides/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [Jewish history turns out not to be an either/or story - as in, either pure Judaism detached from its surroundings or else assimilation -…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/jewish-history-turns-out-not-to-be-an-either-or-story-as-in-either/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [Growing up in Britain as a rather loose Jew, the two things that didn't belong together were freedom and religious intensity. In America, they…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/growing-up-in-britain-as-a-rather-loose-jew-the-two-things-that-didn/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/in-the-end-history-especially-british-history-with-its-succession-of/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [From 1789, perhaps even before that, it had been the willingness of politicians to exploit either the threat or the fact of violence that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/from-1789-perhaps-even-before-that-it-had-been-the-willingness-of/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [The default mode of modern writing about art is to despise any notion of singularity as so much overheated genius-fetishism.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/the-default-mode-of-modern-writing-about-art-is-to-despise-any-notion/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [The synagogues of late antiquity and the early medieval period were built around imagery: imagery of remembering the Temple, but also of the celestial…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/the-synagogues-of-late-antiquity-and-the-early-medieval-period-were/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [At 11, 12, I thought I was clumsy, ugly, a mess, an unappealing person, but I did have the gift of the gab. I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/at-11-12-i-thought-i-was-clumsy-ugly-a-mess-an-unappealing-person-but/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [We seem wired to grieve with greenery. Allowing the dead to dissolve into the earth, to become part of the cycle of the seasons,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/we-seem-wired-to-grieve-with-greenery-allowing-the-dead-to-dissolve/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [The older I get, the more I want to do. It beats death, decay or golf in unfortunate trousers. Peace and quiet depress me.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/the-older-i-get-the-more-i-want-to-do-it-beats-death-decay-or-golf-in/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

> [The Elephantine papyri - written as some of the books of the Bible are being written - is true social and legal documentation, and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-schama/the-elephantine-papyri-written-as-some-of-the-books-of-the-bible-are/)

[Simon Schama](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-schama/)

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