Historian Quotes

Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.

To an art historian a Giotto is a 14th Century painting. To an artist it was painted yesterday. We free ourselves from the past when we see it freshly.

If the historian will be faithful to the photograph, the photograph will be faithful to history.

Historians relate not so much what is done as what they would have believed.

Susan Campbell has brought Isabella's fascinating forgotten story back to life with the deep research of a born historian and the vibrant readable prose style of a veteran journalist.

Computer scientists are the historians of computing.

If Bob Dylan really is an historian in and of himself in his work, in his performances, he is also an historian with a unique sense of humor. There's always been a bit of a stand-up comic in him.

I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.

History does not have sides, although historians do.

We are all historians in our small way.

[T]he historian lays humanity on the couch.

Part of the NAFTA legislation required studies of labor practices, and there was quite a good study that came out by a labor historian on the use of NAFTA to undermine and destroy unions.

Every good historian is almost by definition a revisionist. He looks at the accepted view of a particular historic episode or period with a very critical eye.

To what degree are historians chroniclers of the truth and to what degree are they just novelists, frankly?

The first law of history is to dread uttering a falsehood; the next is not to fear stating the truth; lastly, the historian's writings should be open to no suspicion of partiality or animosity.

It is a very good exercise, at least from a historian's point of view, to imagine oneself a devout pagan while reading various Christian writings.

Women have their uses for historians.

The historian does not locate known facts in a hypothetical, general pattern of processes; his aim is to link fact to fact, one unique knowable event to another individual one that begot it.

We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.

The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist.

Reason is an historian, but the passions are actors.

David Irving is not just a Fascist historian. He is also a great historian of Fascism.

Ironically, the more intensive and far-reaching a historian's research, the greater the difficulty of citation. As the mountain of material grows, so does the possibility of error.

A Writer says: read what I have written An historian says: listen to my lecture A critic says: listen to what I think A journalist says: let me tell you a story.

I wanted to work in the arts. My dream come true would be to be an architectural historian and work with the royal palaces and all the fabulous art collections. But I'm not committed enough.

What is a historian? Someone who doesn't write well enough to work on a daily.

A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.

If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.

I'm a professional historian. I do my research. I have a PhD. What does my race have to do with it?

A historian is battling all the time to remember as much as possible.

A historian is interested in the past because he is interested in life... a deeply felt need to assure the continuity of human life and discover its meaning, even if the goal is never fully realized.

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.

A historian has many duties... the first is not to slander; the second is not to bore

It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.

Newt Gingrich seldom misses a chance to note that he is a historian.

Ultimately a historian has to put together a cohesive work. That doesn't mean that your curiosity is ever totally satisfied.

The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation.

An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting.

Well goodness knows, goodness knows what historians will write.

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

I feel slightly uneasy at the way historians are consulted as if history is going to repeat itself. It never does.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

The greatest poet who ever wrote about rowing is Virgil, the greatest historian is Thucydides, but the greatest imagination ever to turn its attention to the sport is that of painter, Thomas Eakins.

It has been important to me, as an historian of photography, to understand photography by photographing.

No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'

It should be the historian's business not to belittle but to illuminate the greatness of man's spirit.

As the NFF Historian, I'll have a new platform to indulge my passion for the most emotional, colorful and hysterical game ever developed by mankind and Walter Camp.

What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?

My experiences thus far had me planning to throttle the first Tudor historian I met upon my return for gross dereliction of duty.

I was born knowing that I had to be a painter, because my father, an art historian, always presented painting as the only acceptable thing in life.