Historian Quotes - Page 22

• The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.

  Henry Adams

  Teaching, Ignorance, Study

  Benjamin Franklin, Ulysses S Grant, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Adams (2016). “Great American Lives: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, and The Education of Henry Adams”, p.1577, Open Road Media

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• Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Civilization, Effort, Tragedy

  "Henry Kissinger and the American Approach to Foreign Policy". Book by Gregory D. Cleva, 1989.

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• Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
  More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.

  Elizabeth Bishop

  Color, Topography, Maps

  Elizabeth Bishop (2015). “Poems”, p.5, Macmillan

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• I am a historian. With the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously.

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Mother, Who I Am, Wife

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• So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, a stop, and I go to another thing. A judge has to put an end to a deliberation. But for a historian, theres never an end to the past. It can go on and on and on.

  A. B. Yehoshua

  Truth, Past, Judging

  "Sh'ma, Volume 34, Issue 607 - Volume 36, Issue 626". Book edited by J. Jakobovits, 2004.

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• The ordinary routines of life are never chronicled by the historian, but they make up almost the whole of experience.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Ordinary, Whole

  Peter Ackroyd (2011). “Foundation: The History of England”, p.47, Pan Macmillan

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• I'm no politician. I'm an historian who has learned through a lifetime of studying that nothing in the world beats universal education.

  Stephen Ambrose

  World, Study, Lifetime

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• Herschel Grynszpan's life was enigmatic, elusive and tragic. The traces he left on the historical record are just sufficient to tantalize and baffle historians. Harlan Greene has woven from these threads a riveting novel, erotic, haunting, and profoundly moving.

  Janette Turner Hospital

  Moving, Erotic, Historical

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• The early Christians' opponents all accepted that Jesus existed, taught, had disciples, worked miracles, and was put to death on a Roman cross. As in our day, debate and disagreement centred largely not on the story but on the significance of Jesus. Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically.

  Graham Stanton

  Christian, Jesus, Miracle

  Graham Stanton (2002). “The Gospels and Jesus”, p.145, Oxford University Press

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• The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.

  Walter Benjamin

  Heart, Past, Mouths

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.265, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Historians constantly rewrite history, reinterpreting (reorganizing) the records of the past. So, too, when the brain's coherent responses become part of a memory, they are organized anew as part of the structure of consciousness. What makes them memories is that they become part of that structure and thus form part of the sense of self; my sense of self derives from a certainty that my experiences refer back to me, the individual who is having them. Hence the sense of the past, of history, of memory, is in part the creation of the self.

  Israel Rosenfield

  Memories, Past, Self

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• I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

  Howard Hodgkin

  Art, Historical, Periods

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• Presidential legacies are valuable things, too valuable to be left up to historians.

  Thomas Frank

  Presidential, Legacy, Valuable

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• Historians will likely give Obama credit for steering the country away from the brink of economic collapse in 2009.

  Ron Fournier

  Country, Giving, Credit

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• Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes.

  Robert the Bruce

  Liars, Hero, England

  "Fictional character: Robert the Bruce". "Braveheart", 1995.

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• Ghostly legends dot the Prairie State from its big cities to its small towns. These stories make each community unique in a way that no other landmark ever could But Michael Kleen understands that these ghosts are more than just stories. As a folklorist and historian, Kleen shows readers the connection between our past and our present. Haunting Illinois is more than just a ghostly travel guide, it’s an adventure offering new insight on the haunts you know, but also takes you on a trip to the spirits in your own backyard.

  Jeff Belanger

  Adventure, Unique, Past

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

  Adam Hochschild

  Missing, Chance, Notes

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• If I were an antiquarian, I would have eyes only for old stuff, but I am a historian. Therefore, I love life.

  Henri Pirenne

  Love Life, Eye, Stuff

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• The historian assesses that the investment of the wealthy classes in the Bank of England wedded them to the fate of the nation as a whole and to the maintenance of its stability.

  Walter Russell Mead

  Fate, Class, Maintenance

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• Even now, the irony that so non-intellectual a man should choose to engage the Soviet Union on the battlefield of ideas has eluded most commentators and historians.

  Richard Perle

  War, Men, Ideas

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• Science will...produce the data..., but never the
  full meaning. For perceiving real significance, we
  shall need...most of all the brains of poets, [and]
  also those of artists, musicians, philosophers,
  historians, writers in general.

  Lewis Thomas

  Real, Artist, Data

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• History, when rightly written, is but a record of providence; and he who would read history rightly, must read it with his eyes constantly fixed on the hand of God. This statement of a nineteenth-century historian sums up the responsibility of the Christian teacher of history, for he who would teach history or any subject matter rightly, must teach it with his eyes constantly fixed on the hand of God.

  D. A. Fisher

  Christian, Education, Teacher

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• Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed.

  Graham Stanton

  Christian, Jesus, Today

  Graham Stanton (2002). “The Gospels and Jesus”, p.145, Oxford University Press

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• Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the Gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically.

  Graham Stanton

  Christian, Jesus, Today

  Graham Stanton (2002). “The Gospels and Jesus”, p.145, Oxford University Press

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• Historians of literature like to regard a century as a series of ten faces, each grimacing in a different way.

  Richard Ellmann

  History, Different, Literature

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