Marc Bloch

History is, in its essentials, the science of change. It knows and it teaches that it is impossible to find two events…

— Marc Bloch

The ABC of our profession is to avoid these large abstract terms in order to try to discover behind them the only…

— Marc Bloch

“Similarly, when it is not the past that we are studying, but some set of phenomena relating to a principle still active,…

— Marc Bloch

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

— Marc Bloch

“Hitler kept the truth from his servile masses. Instead of intellectual persuasion he gave them emotional suggestion.”

— Marc Bloch

“When it is a question of ascertaining whether or not some human act has really taken place, [historians] cannot be too painstaking.…

— Marc Bloch

“The very names we use to describe ancient ideas or vanished forms of social organization would be quite meaningless if we had…

— Marc Bloch

The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines.

— Marc Bloch

“No doubt they thought that by allowing themselves to become martyrs to their nerves they were giving proof of a fine stoicism,…

— Marc Bloch

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

— Marc Bloch

Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge.

— Marc Bloch

The nature of our intelligence is such that it is stimulated far less by the will to know than by the will…

— Marc Bloch