Education Quote by Herbert Butterfield

“While there is battle and hatred men have eyes for nothing save the fact that the enemy is the cause of all the troubles;…

— Herbert Butterfield

The academic mind can eat away the very basis of its own assurance ... produce contortions when it tries to bend over backward ...…

— Herbert Butterfield

Very strange bridges are used to make the passage from one state of things to another; we may lose sight of them in our…

— Herbert Butterfield

But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness - each system only too delighted to…

— Herbert Butterfield

“History is not the study of origins; rather it is the analysis of all the mediations by which the past was turned into our…

— Herbert Butterfield

In the last resort, sheer insight is the greatest asset of all.

— Herbert Butterfield

The study of the past with one eye, so to speak, upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history…

— Herbert Butterfield

“The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”

— Herbert Butterfield

Those people work more wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world ... than those who are forever…

— Herbert Butterfield

About the scientific revolution: it "outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes".

— Herbert Butterfield

It has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of…

— Herbert Butterfield

Concerning alchemy it is more difficult to discover the actual state of things, in that the historians who specialise in this field seem sometimes…

— Herbert Butterfield