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Historian Quotes

I’m not an aviation historian, I’m not an Air Force aficionado, and I’m definitely not a ufologist. I’m not someone who studies UFOs Picture Quote #1

There are very interesting books about these events, for instance one by a very well-known American historian named William R. Polk called Violent Politics. It’s a record of what are basically guerrilla wars from the American Revolution right up through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq Picture Quote #1

Yes, I’m a reasonably good self-taught historian of the 1930s and 40s. I’ve never wanted to write about another time or place. I wouldn’t know what to say about contemporary society Picture Quote #1

If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive Picture Quote #1

What strikes the historian surveying anti-Semitism worldwide over more than two millennia is its fundamental irrationality. It seems to make no sense, any more than malaria or meningitis makes sense Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

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I don’t have the education of an art historian. I’ve certainly read about art and look at art and have educated myself to some extent. But I’m not a skilled or thorough art historian and I wouldn’t call myself an art critic Picture Quote #1

Because I’m an art historian, I have some experience of writing that comes out of close attention. That’s what really art history is. You’re looking at something very closely, and you try to write in a meticulous way about it Picture Quote #1

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 Picture Quote #1

Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change - only to give stability to one beautiful moment Picture Quote #1

I lay no claim, it should be clear, to being a historian. So in my books, the intimate and personal have been intertwined inextricably with the broad and historical Picture Quote #1

Popularizing - much less venturing beyond one’s secure turf - was frowned upon for many years. I think I probably internalized the prohibition, even though I was - and knew I was - among the best speakers and writers of my age cohort. I don’t mean I was the best historian - a quite different measure Picture Quote #1

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I’m a historian. The act of predicting the future discomfits me, in any event - and the bigger the prediction, the more distrusting I am Picture Quote #1

In five hundred years’ time, to the historian writing the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, this little episode would not exist. There will be plenty of other causes. You and me and poor Jones will not even figure in a footnote. It will be all economics, politics, battles Picture Quote #1

Every historian has a vested interest. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was not about the Roman but the British empire. What price the truth? Picture Quote #1

. . . What role does historiography play in the way a society and culture remembers past events? Does the historian have a moral or civic responsibility to this project of memory that ought to influence the way he or she engages in historical practice? Should moral concerns influence the historian’s choice of subject matter, of issues to discuss, of evidence to use? Picture Quote #1

I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: ‘There’s no further new material; there are only new questions.’ Picture Quote #1

I conduct very few interviews with veterans. The contemporaneous, or near-contemporaneous, record for WWII is so spectacularly deep that latter-day recollections are largely unnecessary for a historian. Of course, in considering any account, I’m looking for additional sources that can confirm or enlarge that version of events Picture Quote #1

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To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy Picture Quote #1

What is a historian? Someone who doesn’t write well enough to work on a daily Picture Quote #1

I can see only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen Picture Quote #1

The first Elizabeth film was an absolute travesty historically. It really was sloppy. Things like ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ and ‘The Tudors,’ people’s perception is distorted because of these. It matters to me as a historian, because I spend my life trying to get it right Picture Quote #1

The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don’t know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand Picture Quote #1

I never intended to be a historian of religion. My aim was to become a professor of English Literature in a university, but I had a series of absolute career disasters and found myself making television programs about the nature of religion and about Christian history and started to discover about other religious traditions, and that was an absolute eye-opener for me Picture Quote #1

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I consider myself a writer who happens to write about history, rather than a historian. I was an English major in college. What I’ve learned about history is in the field, so to speak. Going into the archives and working with it directly Picture Quote #1

Environmental history... refer[s] to the past contact of man with his total habitat. . . . The environmental historian like the ecologist [s]hould think in terms of wholes, of communities, of interrelationships, and of balances Picture Quote #1

I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it’s my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction Picture Quote #1

Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it’s true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. As for nonfiction, for history, it may be real, but its truth is slippery, hard to access, with no fixed meaning bolted to it. If history doesn’t become story, it dies to everyone except the historian Picture Quote #1

Anne Romaine [ is ]folk singer and a skillful historian, even though she was not formally trained in the field [of Malcolm X] Picture Quote #1

I started writing when I was 21. I was going to become an historian. And then I realized there was more to the world than just the past. I didn’t want to spend my life in the library Picture Quote #1

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Text Quotes

I’m not an aviation historian, I’m not an Air Force aficionado, and I’m definitely not a ufologist. I’m not someone who studies UFOs. (Historian Quotes) There are very interesting books about these events, for instance one by a very well-known American historian named William R. Polk called Violent Politics. It’s a record of what are basically guerrilla wars from the American Revolution right up through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Historian Quotes) Yes, I’m a reasonably good self-taught historian of the 1930s and 40s. I’ve never wanted to write about another time or place. I wouldn’t know what to say about contemporary society. (Historian Quotes) If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive. (Historian Quotes) What strikes the historian surveying anti-Semitism worldwide over more than two millennia is its fundamental irrationality. It seems to make no sense, any more than malaria or meningitis makes sense. (Historian Quotes) 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. (Historian Quotes) I don’t have the education of an art historian. I’ve certainly read about art and look at art and have educated myself to some extent. But I’m not a skilled or thorough art historian and I wouldn’t call myself an art critic. (Historian Quotes) Because I’m an art historian, I have some experience of writing that comes out of close attention. That’s what really art history is. You’re looking at something very closely, and you try to write in a meticulous way about it. (Historian Quotes) 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. (Historian Quotes) Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change - only to give stability to one beautiful moment. (Historian Quotes) I lay no claim, it should be clear, to being a historian. So in my books, the intimate and personal have been intertwined inextricably with the broad and historical. (Historian Quotes) Popularizing - much less venturing beyond one’s secure turf - was frowned upon for many years. I think I probably internalized the prohibition, even though I was - and knew I was - among the best speakers and writers of my age cohort. I don’t mean I was the best historian - a quite different measure. (Historian Quotes) I’m a historian. The act of predicting the future discomfits me, in any event - and the bigger the prediction, the more distrusting I am. (Historian Quotes) In five hundred years’ time, to the historian writing the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, this little episode would not exist. There will be plenty of other causes. You and me and poor Jones will not even figure in a footnote. It will be all economics, politics, battles. (Historian Quotes) Every historian has a vested interest. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was not about the Roman but the British empire. What price the truth? (Historian Quotes) . . . What role does historiography play in the way a society and culture remembers past events? Does the historian have a moral or civic responsibility to this project of memory that ought to influence the way he or she engages in historical practice? Should moral concerns influence the historian’s choice of subject matter, of issues to discuss, of evidence to use? (Historian Quotes) I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: ‘There’s no further new material; there are only new questions.’ (Historian Quotes) I conduct very few interviews with veterans. The contemporaneous, or near-contemporaneous, record for WWII is so spectacularly deep that latter-day recollections are largely unnecessary for a historian. Of course, in considering any account, I’m looking for additional sources that can confirm or enlarge that version of events. (Historian Quotes) To view current events as a historian is to account for all perspectives, even those of your enemy (Historian Quotes) What is a historian? Someone who doesn’t write well enough to work on a daily. (Historian Quotes) I can see only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen. (Historian Quotes) The first Elizabeth film was an absolute travesty historically. It really was sloppy. Things like ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ and ‘The Tudors,’ people’s perception is distorted because of these. It matters to me as a historian, because I spend my life trying to get it right. (Historian Quotes) The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don’t know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand. (Historian Quotes) I never intended to be a historian of religion. My aim was to become a professor of English Literature in a university, but I had a series of absolute career disasters and found myself making television programs about the nature of religion and about Christian history and started to discover about other religious traditions, and that was an absolute eye-opener for me. (Historian Quotes) I consider myself a writer who happens to write about history, rather than a historian. I was an English major in college. What I’ve learned about history is in the field, so to speak. Going into the archives and working with it directly. (Historian Quotes) Environmental history... refer[s] to the past contact of man with his total habitat. . . . The environmental historian like the ecologist [s]hould think in terms of wholes, of communities, of interrelationships, and of balances. (Historian Quotes) I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it’s my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction. (Historian Quotes) Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it’s true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. As for nonfiction, for history, it may be real, but its truth is slippery, hard to access, with no fixed meaning bolted to it. If history doesn’t become story, it dies to everyone except the historian. (Historian Quotes) Anne Romaine [ is ]folk singer and a skillful historian, even though she was not formally trained in the field [of Malcolm X]. (Historian Quotes) I started writing when I was 21. I was going to become an historian. And then I realized there was more to the world than just the past. I didn’t want to spend my life in the library. (Historian Quotes)

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