Historian Quotes

“It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity.”
― C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

“The historian is a prophet looking backwards.”
― Friedrich Von Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments

“What comes to your mind when you think of the word Transylvania, if you ponder it at all? What comes to my mind are mountains of savage beauty, ancient castles, werewolves, and witches - a land of magical obscurity. How, in short, am I to believe I will still be in Europe, on entering such a realm? I shall let you know if it's Europe or fairyland, when I get there. First, Snagov - I set out tomorrow.”
― Elizabeth Kostova

“The only business of the historian is to relate things exactly as they are: this he can never do as long as he is afraid”
― Lucian of Samosata, Lucian's True History

“History and man made each other.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“One thing that I find very weird here in Australia is Latvians in Australia celebrate Latvian traditions by a calendar, not by the seasons as they do in Latvia. It’s a bit strange for me, everyone said a few weeks ago, ‘Merry Christmas,’ in Latvian, or maybe Winterfest, and here I was sweating like a pig saying, ‘Merry Winterfest!’ – Viktor Brenners, 2nd Generation DP”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“I became an historian in order to preserve my own history forever- Dracula.”
― Elizabeth Kostova

“For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian──ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection that unattainable by the highest art.”
― Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians

“At ten, I couldn't articulate much but I got the message: to be a true historian, you had to mourn amply and well. (spoken by narrator Ava Bigtree in Swamplandia!)”
― Karen Russell

“This corner of history was as real as the tiled floor under our feet or the wooden tabletop under our fingers. The people to whom it had happened had actually lived and breathed and felt and thought and then died, as we did - as we would.”
― Elizabeth Kostova

“How can I, who have not the strength to hold my own past, hope to save the past of someone else?”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“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.”
― Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History

“Deserve it, then. Take the cold bath bravely. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not. Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul. Be honest, frank and fearless and get some grasp of the real values of life.”
― w.e.b Du Bois.

“Underneath all that divides us, we share a common humanity. Discovery and the quest for well-being motivate all of us. We continually seek relief from the difficulties of existence, and in so doing, we change the world, hopefully for the better. My vision is that humanity will one day learn to be at peace with itself. I think that can happen only when people have their basic needs met and each is allowed to reach his or her potential.”
― Terry B. Clayton

“When AI finishes taking everyone's career, nobody will be able to derive a personal identity from their job title. Then we will all be hobbyists, and I'm starting early. I am Jarod Kintz, Pickleball Historian.”
― Jarod Kintz, Powdered Saxophone Music

“When history repeats itself, historians repeat themselves.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“I am a historian.”
― Steven Magee

“As an American historian, I will be correcting the historical record for the dangerous DeSoto Solar Farm to be a true, accurate and complete history.”
― Steven Magee

“As a USA historian, it is my job to ensure the USA historical record is accurate in the areas I am knowledgeable in.”
― Steven Magee

“As an American historian, I am required to keep an accurate and truthful historical record.”
― Steven Magee

“One of the things I like about being a video historian is that it takes me to places I would not normally go to.”
― Steven Magee

“Much of my time is spent teaching the internet what to say to people.”
― Steven Magee

“மொழி, இனம், மதம் என்று அனைத்திலும் பன்முகத்தன்மைகொண்ட நிலப்பகுதி இது. இந்தப் பன்முகம்தான் இந்திய தேசியத்தில் பெருமைப்பட வேண்டிய முக்கிய அம்சமாக அமைந்துள்ளது. இந்துத்துவா, ஒரே மதத்தையும் ஒரே மொழியையுமே தேசியமாக முன்வைக்கிறது. இரண்டும் ஒன்றாகாது. காந்தி, நேரு, தாகூர் போன்றோர் முன்னிறுத்திய பன்மைத்துவத்தை நாம் மீட்டெடுக்க வேண்டும்.”
― ராமச்சந்திர குஹா

“A historian who doesn't want to make history is a bad historian.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“Those who have no understanding of History should be shunned from shaping our future”
― Nur Elena Kar

“Mnemosyne had designed Clio to be inquisitive, and her second daughter did not disappoint. No notion went uncontested when Clio was around. Mnemosyne was careful not to dampen her daughter's thirst for knowledge. It was her best asset. Clio would one day teach the world how to appreciate the history of what had come to pass and how to value all that now surrounded them.”
― Farrah Rochon, Bemused

“Being a historian is hard. There's the learning of foreign and/or dead languages; the remembering of archaic legal terms; the decoding of scrawled handwriting; the contextualising of long-forgotten slang and jokes; the traipsing off to faraway archives; the frustration of lacking key sources, or of having way too any; and the constant nagging doubt that there's both too much to know and so much we'll never know.”
― Greg Jenner

“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”
― Herbert Butterfield, 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...”
― Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History