Historian Quotes

449 Historian quotes by 349 unique authors

The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies. — James Anthony Froude
One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on… — Victor Hugo
Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the… — Lytton Strachey
I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is… — Michel de Montaigne
Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to… — Walter Raleigh
Historians are prophets with their face turned backward. — Friedrich Schiller
Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. — Samuel Johnson
For historians ought to be precise, truthful, and quite unprejudiced, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should cause them to swerve from the… — Miguel de Cervantes
The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed… — Edward Gibbon
The historian of science may be tempted to claim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists… — Thomas Kuhn
Exact science and its practical movements are no checks on the greatest poet, but always his encouragement and support ... The sailor and traveller, the… — Walt Whitman
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride… — Edward Gibbon
As historians, we refuse to allow ourselves these vain speculations which turn on possibilities that, in order to be reduced to actuality, suppose an overturning… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
My share of the work of the world may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious. Darwin could work only… — John Harvey Kellogg
As geology is essentially a historical science, the working method of the geologist resembles that of the historian. This makes the personality of the geologist… — Reinout Willem van Bemmelen
To seek in the great accumulation of the already-said the text that resembles "in advance" a later text, to ransack history in order to rediscover… — Michel Foucault
The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of… — William Henry Chamberlin
If physicists could not quote in the text, they would not feel that much was lost with respect to advancement of knowledge of the natural… — Unknown Author
I can see only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent… — H. A. L. Fisher
I think the fault is more with historicists who have stubbornly failed to develop a good theory of historicity. By simply resting on the feeble… — Earl Doherty
The historian should be fearless and incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth; one who, as the poets says, calls a fig a… — Lucian
Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian. — Lee Simonson
The Whig interpretation of history ... is the tendency in many historians to write on the side of Protestants and Whigs, to praise revolutions provided… — Herbert Butterfield
No future historian of the United States will be able to use quotations from her twentieth-century poets in support of an imperial policy of conquest… — Unknown Author
The historian records, but the novelist creates. — E. M. Forster

Who Wrote These Historian Quotes

349 authors contributed a total of 449 Historian Quotes, led by these top contributors: