Historian Quotes

We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics.

Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.

I can see that you are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a different place or a different time: What's the same and what's different?

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

From the time I was a little boy I found myself reading history when I had a choice. I read a lot of things, but history had a special appeal for me.

All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.

Yet did that Antiochus, who was also called Dionysius, become an origin of troubles again.

Now, my father Matthias was not only eminent on account of is nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of his righteousness, and was in great reputation in Jerusalem, the greatest city we have.

Now Herod was an active man, and soon found proper materials for his active spirit to work upon.

I was myself brought up with my brother, whose name was Matthias, for he was my own brother, by both father and mother; and I made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding.

The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.

The chief incalculable in war is the human will.

In should be the duty of every soldier to reflect on the experiences of the past, in the endeavor to discover improvements, in his particular sphere of action, which are practicable in the immediate future.

Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.

Every action is seen to fall into one of three main categories, guarding, hitting, or moving. Here, then, are the elements of combat, whether in war or pugilism.

Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.

A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.

Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

Washington's defeat in 1754 was followed by active military preparations on both sides.

The Stuart sovereigns of England steadily attempted to strengthen their power, and the resistance to that effort caused an immense growth of Parliamentary influence.

The residence of the Plymouth settlers in the Netherlands, and the later conquest of the Dutch colonies, had brought the Americans into contact with the singularly wise and free institutions of the Dutch.

The participation of the people in their own government was the more significant, because the colonies actually had what England only seemed to have, - three departments of government.

The old charters of Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Carolinas had given title to strips of territory extending from the Atlantic westward to the Pacific.

The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government.

The colonies had little occasion to feel or to resent direct royal prerogative.

One of the strongest and most persistent elements in national development has been that inheritance of political traditions and usages which the new settlers brought with them.

On March 10, 1764, preliminary resolutions passed the House of Commons looking towards the Stamp Act.

More emphasis was thus thrown upon the local governments than in England.

In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States.