Home / Authors / Herbert Butterfield

Herbert Butterfield Quotes

Author

Herbert Butterfield was a prominent historian known for his research on the period of the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation. His work, 'The Origins of Modern Science', had a profound impact on the field of history.

Filter quotes by topic

All History Historian Historical Past Has Beens Ifs Revolution Sin Writing Can Do Christendom Christianity English Historian Episodes Historiography Lasts Mere Mind Produce Reformation

Famous Herbert Butterfield Quotes

“The historian is never more himself than when he is searching his mind for a general statement that shall in itself give the hint of its own underlying complexity.”

Writing History Complexity Historian The Past

Book:The Whig interpretation of history

Source: The Whig interpretation of history

“But the true historical fervour is the love of the past for the sake of the past… And behind it is the very passion to understand men in their diversity, the desire to study a bygone age in the things in which it differs from the present. The true historical fervour is that of the man for whom the exercise of historical imagination brings its own reward, in those inklings of a deeper understanding, those glimpses of a new interpretative truth, which are the historian’s achievement and his aesthetic delight”

History Historian Historiography English Historian

Book:The Whig interpretation of history

Source: The Whig interpretation of history

“If history could be told in all its complexity and detail it would provide us with something as chaotic and baffling as life itself...”

History Historian Historiography English Historian

Book:The Whig interpretation of history

Source: The Whig interpretation of history

“The academic mind can eat away the very basis of its own assurance ... produce contortions when it tries to bend over backward ... allow itself to be dismayed by the picture it has created of relentless historical process.”

Trying Mind War Process History Military Produce Bases Historical Academic Assurance Relentless Dismayed

Author:Herbert Butterfield

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

Lasts History Insight Assets Sheer Resorts

Author:Herbert Butterfield

“It is not a sin to introduce a personal bias that can be recognized and discounted. The sin in historical composition is the organization of the story in such a way that bias cannot be recognized.”

Way Stories Sin History Organization Historical Introducing Bias Composition

Author:Herbert Butterfield

“The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical."”

Mean Eye Past Speak Sin History Study Source Essence Sophistry

Author:Herbert Butterfield

“The Whig interpretation of history ... is the tendency in many historians to write on the side of Protestants and Whigs, to praise revolutions provided they have been successful, to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present.”

Source: The Whig interpretation of history

“The task of the historian is to understand the peoples of the past better than they understand themselves.”

Past History Tasks Historian

Author:Herbert Butterfield

“Perhaps history is a thing that would stop happening if God held His breath, or could be imagined as turning away to think of something else.”

Ifs Thinking God History Happenings Breaths

Author:Herbert Butterfield

About the Author

Born: October 7, 1900
Died: July 20, 1979
Known for: Author
Quotes: 20

Books & Sources

The Whig interpretation of historyRelated source material

The Origins of Modern ScienceRelated source material

Christianity, Diplomacy and WarRelated source material

Similar Authors

George Kitson ClarkBrowse related quotes
David FromkinBrowse related quotes
C. V. WedgwoodBrowse related quotes
Lucien FebvreBrowse related quotes
Geoffrey WardBrowse related quotes
Ernst TroeltschBrowse related quotes
F. M. PowickeBrowse related quotes
Ralph DavisBrowse related quotes
Klemens von MetternichBrowse related quotes
John Holland RoseBrowse related quotes