Historian Quotes · Page 6

The connoisseur might be defined as a laconic art historian, and the art historian as a loquacious connoisseur.

— Erwin Panofsky

“Here is a lesson to brand in fire across any young historian's mind: If you try to do too much, you will…

— Richard Marius

The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies...

— James Anthony Froude

With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present.

— Kenneth M. Stampp

If the historian will be faithful to the photograph, the photograph will be faithful to history.

— Beaumont Newhall

“As an American historian, I am required to keep an accurate and truthful historical record.”

— Steven Magee

[T]he historian must serve two masters, the past and the present.

— Fritz Stern

The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar.

— F. F. Bruce

“At ten, I couldn't articulate much but I got the message: to be a true historian, you had to mourn amply and…

— Karen Russell

... we will hope that future historians will explain the morbid symptoms of present-day society as the childhood ailments of an aspiring…

— Albert Einstein

I learned more from my mother than from all the art historians and curators who have informed me about technical aspects of…

— David Rockefeller

The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh,…

— Marc Bloch

You know the old saying: "History is written by the winners. And also, the team of hand-picked historians that the winner keeps…

— John Hodgman

The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interest, where any chosen…

— Howard Zinn

The greatest historian should also be a great moralist. It is no proof of impartiality to treat wickedness and goodness on the…

— Theodore Roosevelt

I can see that you are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a…

— Donald Kagan

As historians, we refuse to allow ourselves these vain speculations which turn on possibilities that, in order to be reduced to actuality,…

— Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

The postwar [WWII] GI Bill of Rights - and the enthusiastic response to it on the part of America's veterans - signaled…

— Peter Drucker

The older I get the more I'm convinced that it's the purpose of politicians and journalists to say the world is very…

— David Cannadine

If experiments are performed thousands of times at all seasons and in every place without once producing the effects mentioned by your…

— Galileo Galilei

“A historian tries to understand what happened, why it happened, what was the context, who did what, and what assumptions led them…

— Diane Ravitch

My share of the work of the world may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious. Darwin…

— John Harvey Kellogg

It has been said by church historians that in those periods of Christian history where renewal, revival, and awakening took place and…

— R. C. Sproul

The historian Arthur Schlesinger has pointed out that people tend to get interested in politics again every 30 years. The universe moves…

— Marianne Williamson

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

— Ernest Renan

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

— Thomas Frank

I'm a historian, I think history matters, but we don't have to be slavish in following it and restoring it,

— Jack Granatstein

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.

— Barbara Tuchman

I'm a professional historian. I do my research. I have a PhD. What does my race have to do with it?

— Nell Irvin Painter

“I am not a properly trained historian. I am a lawyer by trade, and an inquisitive, practical woman by character.”

— Liza Picard

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.

— Reza Aslan

It has always been difficult for historians to fully grasp the intelligence of painters.

— Dore Ashton

'Wolf Hall' attempts to duplicate not the historian's chronology but the way memory works: in leaps, loops, flashes.

— Hilary Mantel

Historians relate not so much what is done as what they would have believed.

— Benjamin Franklin

The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation.

— Agatha Christie

It is up to the historians, not politicians, to judge what happened in the past. Politicians look into the future.

— Egemen Bag?s

Well goodness knows, goodness knows what historians will write.

— Alexander Downer

A few hints as to literary craftsmanship may be useful to budding historians. First and foremost, get writing!

— Samuel Eliot Morison

High malice is almost inherent in the profession of historian.

— David Starkey

God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.

— Ambrose Bierce