#historian

Every historian with professional standards speaks or writes what he believes to be true. ↗

— Samuel E. Morison

#believes #every #historian #professional #speaks

The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind. ↗

— Samuel E. Morison

#decisions #force #his #historian #less

Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis. ↗

— Samuel E. Morison

#bad #broad #early #generalization #his

Yet enthusiasm is no excuse for the historian going off balance. He should remind the reader that outcomes were neither inevitable nor foreordained, but subject to a thousand changes and chances. ↗

— Samuel E. Morison

#chances #changes #enthusiasm #excuse #going

The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case. ↗

— Howard Nemerov

#discern #facts #historian #make #nothing

As a scholar who regularly surveys archival material, I think that, a century from now, cultural historians will find David Horowitz's spiritual and political odyssey paradigmatic for our time. ↗

— Camille Paglia

#century #cultural #david #find #historians

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#asked #deaf #deaf people #go #historians

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

— Marc Bloch

#definition #examines #facts #historian #incapable

You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time. ↗

— Ken Burns

#get #historian #need #only #subject

Both the historian and the novelist view history as the struggle of a tiny minority, able and determined to make judgments, which is up against a vast and densely packed majority of the blind, who are led by their instincts and unable to think for themselves. ↗

— Lion Feuchtwanger

#against #blind #both #determined #historian