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Historians Quotes

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Historians Quotes

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.”

HistoryHonestyRacismPrejudiceBraveryRussiaHolocaustUkraineAccuracyNazismPolandJewsMassacreAntisemitismStalinismBerlin WallHistoriansNational SocialismYale UniversityBelarus1989Slavic PeoplesPolish JewsOperation ReinhardTimothy D Snyder
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“The historian’s task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well organized society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves.”

TruthHistorySocietyHonestyHistoriansSocial AwarenessHistorical TruthHistory Matters
Author:Tony Judt
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“Interpreting events;' interpreting the universally visible, entirely INdubitable Revelation of the Author of this Universe: how can Dryasdust interpret such things, the dark chaotic dullard, who knows the meaning of nothing cosmic or noble, nor ever will know? Poor wretch, one sees what kind of meaning HE educes from Man's History, this long while past, and has got all the world to believe of it along with him. Unhappy Dryasdust, thrice-unhappy world that takes Dryasdust's reading of the ways of God!”

ImaginationHistoryPropagandaDullScholarshipAcademicsHistoriansOrwellian NightmareDryasdust
Book:History Of Friedrich II of Prussia Volumes 1 - 9: Frederick the Great
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“History is so comprehensive and detailed. I couldn't be a history student. I thought there was a time when I couldn't be a history maker, because of my limited understanding of what that meant. Today, thinking about the passing of Julian Bond and a wonderful conversation with a woman who has influenced so much, I think we all are history makers. All of our names will not be as known as Mr. Bond's or in books, but our names will be on someone's tongue and our memories will be in someone's heart, and we will all be a part of someone's personal story. We have a unique opportunity at this very second to change how we affect someone's life as living history and historians. Flaws and all. Yep.”

InspirationKindnessHistoryGoodnessInfluencerMentoring QuotesHistoriansJulian Bond
Author:Robin Caldwell
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“An ambitious freshman congresswoman demanded funding to put a public historian in every zip code in the country, a correction for what she called the contemporary crisis of truth. It was pitched as a new public works project for the intellectual class, so many of us lately busy driving cars and delivering groceries and completing tasks on demand to make ends meet. Government jobs would put all those degrees to work and be comparatively lucrative. The congresswoman envisioned a national network of fact-checkers and historians, a friendly citizen army devoted to making the truth so accessible and appealing it could not be ignored.”

TruthPoliticsHistoryLiesCorrectionsHistoriansFact Checking
Book:The Office of Historical Corrections
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“History, too, has a penchant for giving birth to itself over and over again, and those whom it appoints agents of change and progress do not always accept their destinies willingly.”

Life LessonsChangeLeadershipDestinyHistoryFateAcceptanceWisdom QuotesWillWillpowerGiving BirthBlack History MonthHistoriansMaking HistoryHarlem RenaissanceWriting HistoryAcceptance Of Oneself And OthersPostered Poetics By AberjhaniNational History DayHistoricityIntellectual HistoryLiving HistoryLessons From HistoryHistory MakersWomen S History MonthHispanic HistoryAgents Of ChangeBirth And RebirthHistoricizationChange AdvocatesContemporary HistoriansCurrent HistoryHistorian AberjhaniModern HistoriansOutstanding People In HistoryPhilosophy Of ChangeReluctant Advocates
Book:Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays
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“The rate spread of EBOLA VIRUS in West Africa, is big tragedy. It is a fatal disease in the history of the world. Intensive education (formal and informal approaches) of the citizens of African can help prevent the spread. International cooperation is urgently needed to combat the EBOLA virus.”

EducationHistoryHealthInternationalHealth CareWorking TogetherCollaborationCombatHistorianHealthy LivingCitizenshipAfricaInternational RelationsVirusInternational LawHealth And FitnessEbolaDiseasesFormal EducationHealth Care SystemHealth Care ReformHistory Of MankindWest AfricaHistoriansAdult EducationHistory Repeating ItselfWorking With PeopleInternational CooperationWorking OutHistory PoliticsInformal EducationAdult LifeCitizen Of The WorldHistory Of ThoughtCities And CountriesCitizens Of The WorldHistory Of PhilosophyCitizens Of HumanityCooperation And AttitudeInformation LiteracyEbola In West AfricaEbola In AfricaPreventative MedicineEbola DiseaseEbola OriginEbola SpreadEbola VictimsCooperation SPrevention Of Diseases In AfricaPrevention Of EbolaHealth CareersInformalAdult LiteracyHealth Care Reform In AfricaInformal FallacyInformal Sector
Author:Lailah Gifty Akita
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“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”

HistoryIdeologyCommunismMarxismTotalitarianism1968AntisemitismHistoriansRace TheoryFinal SolutionSophism
Book:The Origins of Totalitarianism
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“The most striking difference between the ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality. In other words, one destroyed the dignity of human thought whereas the others destroy the dignity of human action. The old manipulators of logic were the concern of the philosopher, whereas the modern manipulators of facts stand in the way of the historian. For history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility—based upon the fact that it is enacted by men and therefore can be understood by men—is in danger, whenever facts are no longer held to be part and parcel of the past and present world, and are misused to prove this or that opinion.”

HistoryIdeologyCommunismMarxismTotalitarianism1968AntisemitismHistoriansPost TruthRace TheoryPost FactualReality ControlSophism
Book:The Origins of Totalitarianism
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“There are no known non-biblical references to a historical Jesus by any historian or other writer of the time during and shortly after Jesus's purported advent. As Barbara G. Walker says, 'No literate person of his own time mentioned him in any known writing.' Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (20 BCE-50 CE)—alive at the purported time of Jesus, and one of the wealthiest and best connected citizens of the Empire—makes no mention of Christ, Christians or Christianity in his voluminous writings. Nor do any of the dozens of other historians and writers who flourished during the first one to two centuries of the common era.”

HistoryAlexandriaHistoriansChristian ApologeticsHistorical JesusHistoricity Of JesusEpistlesHistoricity Of The New TestamentBible ContradictionsBiblical ContradictionsEyewitness TestimonyPhilo Judaeus
Book:The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ
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“In the history of the world, we have left our footprints by our unique stories.”

WorldInspirational QuotesHistoryChristian LifeFaith QuotesPositive QuotesChristian LivingUniquenessJoy Of LifePositive MotivationUplifting QuotesJoyful Living QuotesHistory Of MankindInspired LivingFootprintsUniqueness Of IndividualHistoriansHope And HealingInspired ActionFootprints In LifeUnique PurposeHope And CourageHistory Of ThoughtUniquely YouHistory Of PhilosophySharing FaithSharing Your Life
Book:Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind
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“Sandra L. West and Aberjhani have compiled an encyclopedia that makes an important contribution to our need to know more about one of modern America’s truly significant artistic and cultural movements. It helps us to acknowledge the complexity of African American life at a time when the nation’s culture was taking on a recognizable shape, when race was becoming less of a crushing burden and more of a challenge to progressive people and their ideals, and when cities and their inhabitants symbolized the end of the past and the seductiveness of the new.”

African AmericansAuthorsRace RelationsUs HistoryDemographicsBlack History MonthAfrican American HistoryHistoriansHarlem RenaissanceGreat MigrationAberjhaniEncyclopediasHarlem Renaissance HistoriansCultural MovementsBooks On The Harlem RenaissanceClement Alexander PriceNewark HistorianSandra L West
Book:Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
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“Modern history, both early and late, was made by Europeans, who "built a world around Europe", as historians "know", according to Braudel. That is indeed the "knowledge" of the European historians who themselves "invented" history and then put it to good use. There is not even an inkling of suspicion that it may have been the other way around, that maybe it was the world that made Europe.”

WorldHistoryEuropeEurocentrismHistoriansEuropeansFernand Braudel
Book:ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age
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“I know quite well why I became a historian.... It was because dissension was frowned upon when I was a child: 'Don't argue, Claudia,' 'Claudia, you must not answer back like that.' Argument, of course, is the whole point of history. Disagreement; my word against yours; this evidence against that. If there were such a thing as absolute truth the debate would lose its lustre. I, for one, would no longer be interested.”

TruthHistoryArgumentDebateDissensionHistorians
Book:Moon Tiger
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“It follows that the one thing we should not do to the men and women of past time, and particularly if they ghost through to us as larger than life, is to take them out of their historical contexts. To do so is to run the risk of turning them into monsters, whom we can denounce for our (frequently political) motives—an insidious game, because we are condemning in their make-up that which is likely to belong to a whole social world, the world that helped to fashion them and that is deviously reflected or distorted in them. Censure of this sort is the work of petty moralists and propagandists, not historians (p. 5).”

HistoryMemoryThe PastCensureContextHistoriansPropagandistsMoralists
Book:Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence
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“As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable and credible, and no further: for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing a lame man, and a blind man, in just the same manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. We must also believe the miracles cited by Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, and yet we do not believe them; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to establish our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief to natural and probable things.”

EvidenceJesus ChristAncientCreditMiraclesCredibilityExodusHistoriansRed SeaAlexander The GreatAlexanderHerodotusTacitusJosephusVespasian
Book:The age of reason
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“The writer of history is a tragedian in a theatre of the absurd. Airy speculation is not the most tantalizing aspect of his study. Nothing frustrates more than the sight of dynamic hopes moving toward an inevitably disastrous end. The historian can see what the actors of the historical drama could at best suspect. History's basis is hindsight; but hindsight is also history's absurdity.”

HistoryHistoriansHistory Of Religion
Book:Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan
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“Some historians, by prioritising accuracy of information and parading their attentiveness, diligence, and industry, emphasised only the objective of factual knowledge which might prove detrimental to their scholarly creativity, empathy, and synthetic power as well as their aesthetic judgement and broader understanding. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), p. 16.”

HistoryArchivesHistoriansArchivists
Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
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“The tide of nineteenth-century whig orthodoxy – with its unequal emphasis on constitutional history – subsided, in the mid-twentieth century, to reveal new approaches to History. In the Stubbsian realm of later-medieval political history, for instance, this tide’s retreat enabled the advance of waters which emphasised personalities and the importance of political connections and patronage networks. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), pp. 18–19.”

HistoryArchivesHistoriansArchivistsWhig Philosophy
Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
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“The sphere of ‘historical research’ does not readily or exactly correspond with that of ‘archival practice’ but the notion that even if a single component of the latter is omitted from the former that that then validates the profession’s collective defenestration of all issues historical fails to appreciate the complexity of all arguments. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), p. 41.”

HistoryArchivesHistorical ResearchHistoriansArchivistsArchival Practice
Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
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“A view of archivists as historians’ handmaidens accepts subservience, infers disciplinary subordination, and implies professional inferiority, which does not realise the scale and extent of archivists’ true accumulated expertise. Consequently, if we invert the proposition to pose not whether historians make better archivists but whether archivists make better historians, it is possible to consider not whether archivists should be scholars and engage in historical research but whether the realm of historical scholarship should incorporate archivists and archival activities. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), p. 46.”

HistoryArchivesHistorical ResearchHistoriansArchivistsArchival Practice
Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
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“Thus, by science I mean, first of all, a worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and a methodology aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of the natural and social world. This methodology is characterized, above all else, by the critical spirit: namely, the commitment to the incessant testing of assertions through observations and/or experiments — the more stringent the tests, the better — and to revising or discarding those theories that fail the test. One corollary of the critical spirit is fallibilism: namely, the understanding that all our empirical knowledge is tentative, incomplete and open to revision in the light of new evidence or cogent new arguments (though, of course, the most well-established aspects of scientific knowledge are unlikely to be discarded entirely). . . . I stress that my use of the term 'science' is not limited to the natural sciences, but includes investigations aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of factual matters relating to any aspect of the world by using rational empirical methods analogous to those employed in the natural sciences. (Please note the limitation to questions of fact. I intentionally exclude from my purview questions of ethics, aesthetics, ultimate purpose, and so forth.) Thus, 'science' (as I use the term) is routinely practiced not only by physicists, chemists and biologists, but also by historians, detectives, plumbers and indeed all human beings in (some aspects of) our daily lives. (Of course, the fact that we all practice science from time to time does not mean that we all practice it equally well, or that we practice it equally well in all areas of our lives.)”

LifeScienceKnowledgePracticeArgumentCriticalPhysicsObservationBiologyChemistryInvestigationTestingWorldviewDetectivesMethodologyNatural ScienceDefinitionExperimentHistoriansEmpiricalCogencyFallibilism
Author:Alan Sokal
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