94 Historians Quotes for You to Enjoy

People take the longest possible paths, digress to numerous dead ends, and make all kinds of mistakes. Then historians come along and write summaries of this messy, nonlinear process and make it appear like a simple, straight line. Dean Kamen

People Simple Mistakes Numerous Possible Kinds Write Take Longest Along Come Like Dead Make Messy Nonlinear Line Historians Paths Ends Process Straight Straight Line Then Appear

History had its own way of explaining things. The way historians explain things is by telling a story. Donald Kagan

History Own Way Telling Had Historians Story Explain Explaining Things

It's easy to be popular when you don't make the decisions a president makes. And it's easy to be unpopular when you're the president because you're making decisions that at the time might seem unpopular; but when historians sort it out, it changes. Dorothy Bush Koch

Time You Changes President Out Easy Unpopular Seem Make Sort Because Makes Making Making Decisions Historians Decisions Might Popular

You'd have to have one hell of an imagination to completely make up a story, but historians are very anal about what they think should be portrayed on screen. Thankfully they don't make movies; we do. Dougray Scott

You Hell Think Imagination On-Screen About Make Make Up Historians Up Very Thankfully Screen Story Movies Should Portrayed

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present. Edmond de Goncourt

Past Tell Historians Story Novelists Present

Both European and American historians have done away with any conceptual limits on what in the past needs and deserves investigating. The result, among other things, has been a flood of works on gender history, black history, and ethnic history of all kinds. Edmund Morgan

Needs History Result Black Gender Past Other Has-Been Black History Kinds Both Investigating Conceptual Limits Been Historians American Any Done In The Past Ethnic European Works Flood Away Deserves Among Things

So many able historians have worked over seventeenth-century New England that one would think there was little left to be learned from the people who lived there - fewer than 100,000 at the end of the century. Seldom, apart perhaps from the Greeks and Romans, have so few been studied by so many. Edmund Morgan

People Few Think Would Able Seldom Studied Over New Perhaps Learned New England Been Historians Left End Than Greeks Fewer Romans Apart Little Century Worked England Who Many Lived

A system where self-employment and self-finance was typical gave way to a system of companies having various business freedoms and enabling institutions. This was the 'great transformation' on which historians and sociologists as well as business commentators were to write volumes. Edmund Phelps

Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it. Eric Hobsbawm

People Nation Past Others One Nation Terms Without Makes Historians Contradictions Nations Against Justifies Produce Who

One of the ultimate challenges of biology is to understand how the brain becomes consciously aware of perception, experience and emotion. But it is equally conceivable that the exchange would be useful for the beholders of art, for people who enjoy art, for historians, and for the artists themselves. Eric Kandel

Art Challenges Experience People Perception Enjoy Biology Would Would-Be Emotion Exchange Equally Understand Becomes How Ultimate Brain Historians Artists Themselves Useful Who Aware

To write history is so difficult that most historians are forced to make concessions to the technique of legende. Erich Auerbach

History Difficult Write Most Make Forced Historians Technique

Hockey historians say the handshake dates to English settlers in Canada, who preached an upper-class version of sportsmanship in the 19th century. Soon, tough kids in urban and prairie rinks began imitating imagined dukes and earls of the old country. George Vecsey

Old Tough Country Imitating Settlers Say Kids Dates Soon Sportsmanship Prairie Historians Preached Version Began Canada Handshake Upper-Class Hockey Old Country Urban Century English Who Imagined

Historians still often see the end of the war as meaning nothing more for Germany than lost territories, lost participation in colonization, and lost assets for the state and individuals. They frequently overlook the most serious loss that Germany suffered. Gustav Stresemann

War Lost Nothing State See More Colonization Individuals Participation Most Territories Frequently Overlook Still Loss Historians End Germany Than Often Meaning Serious Suffered Assets

I find there's a thin, permeable membrane between journalism and history, and though some academic historians take a dim view of it, I gather a lot of strength and professional inspiration from passing back and forth across it. Hampton Sides

I've said before that I am not a historian and that when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust, it is the historians that should reflect on it. Hassan Rouhani

Before Reflect Dimensions Said Am Historian Historians Holocaust Should Speaking

No, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers. Heinrich Schliemann

Work Disagree Research Aim Sole Able Some Only Eminent Fact Occupied Am Foreign Historians Historical Historical Fact Establish Which

In the more recently disclosed field of history in the ancient Near East, however, there has been no such sense of responsibility displayed by historians either in Europe or America. James Henry Breasted

History Responsibility Sense Field Ancient East Has-Been More However Been Historians America Either Europe Displayed Near Recently

The apparent pointlessness of fashion may be just what makes it so strong as a zeitgeist sensor. Even I, a designer, do not know why a certain proportion feels dated or why another one feels exciting at a given moment. I leave that to the cultural historians and theorists. Jil Sander

In the closing years of the nineteenth century, African-American historians began to look at their people's history from their vantage point and their point of view. John Henrik Clarke

History People Nineteenth Nineteenth Century Vantage Vantage Point Point Point Of View Look Years Historians Began Closing African-American Century View

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