Destiny Quote by H. A. L. Fisher

“Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me.…

— Anonymous

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

— James Anthony Froude

“Certainly every historian brings certain predilections to the study of history. But every historian also has the ethical obligation to suspend judgment until finding…

— George M. Dennison

“History would not be what it is, the record of man’s crimes and follies, if logic and decency governed its events and great decisions.”

— Ladislas Farago

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

— Diane Ravitch

“The only historian capable of fanning the spark of hope in the past is the one who is firmly convinced that even the dead…

— Walter Benjamin

It is not often that nations learn from the past even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it. For the lessons of…

— Henry A. Kissinger

The only business of the historian is to relate things exactly as they are: this he can never do as long as he is…

— Anonymous

“No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." ( The Course of Human Events , NEH Jefferson Lecture…

— David McCullough

The idea that historians aren't affected by what goes on around them I think is slightly fanciful.

— Kwasi Kwarteng

“It is indeed the duty of historians to stress the contrast between the standards of the past and the standards of the present. Some…

— Norman Davies

“Scholars discern motions of history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however.…

— David Mitchell