77 Historical Research Quotes
Following is our list of historical research quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about .
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Famous Historical Research Quotes
Medical research in the twentieth century mostly takes place in the lab; in the Renaissance, though, researchers went first and foremost to the library to see what the ancients had said. — Peter Lewis Allen
With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present. — Kenneth M. Stampp
History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought. — Etienne Gilson
History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions. — Ken Burns
Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time. — Herodotus
Study the past if you would divine the future. — Confucius
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology. — W. H. Auden
What distinguishes the historian from the collector of historical facts is generalization. — Edward Hallett Carr
It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed. — Emile Durkheim
The study of history lies at the foundation of all sound military conclusions and practice. — Alfred Thayer Mahan
The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies. — Marc Bloch
History is on every occasion the record of that which one age finds worthy of note in another. — Jacob Burckhardt
Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around. — Jean M. Auel
The critical principle demanded an examination, for instance, of the contribution of different periods, thus to some extent embarking on historical linguistics. — Ferdinand De Saussure
History must speak for itself. A historian is content if he has been able to shed more light. — William L. Shirer
Short Historical Research Quotes
- The study of History is the beginning of wisdom. — Jean Bodin
- History is a light that illuminates the past, and a key that unlocks the door to the future. — Runoko Rashidi
- Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft. — Winston Churchill
- Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind. — Marston Bates
- Enough research will tend to support your conclusions. — Arthur Bloch
- [T]he historian must serve two masters, the past and the present. — Fritz Stern
- If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past. — Baruch Spinoza
Historical Quotes
The truth is the greatest enemy of the State. — Unknown Author
An honest public servant can't become rich in politics. He can only attain greatness and satisfaction by service. — Harry S. Truman
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure. — Thurgood Marshall
As a historical legacy, the Kashmir conflict has been an outstanding issue for more than half a century. — Li Peng
A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind. — Grace Lee Boggs
Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. Its five hundred years later and they still cant see us. We are still invisible. — John Trudell
Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed — Paulo Freire
Nothing will stop us. The road to the stars is steep and dangerous. But we're not afraid . . . Space flights can't be stopped. This isn't the work of one man or even a group of men. It is a historical process which mankind is carrying out in accordance with the natural laws of human development. — Yuri Gagarin
Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship. — Joseph Stalin
You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning. — Andrew Jackson
People Writing About Historical Research
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Etienne Gilson |
9 | 66 |
 Ken Burns |
61 | 340 |
 Herodotus |
119 | 898 |
 Confucius |
911 | 18025 |
 W. H. Auden |
431 | 3476 |
 Edward Hallett Carr |
11 | 255 |
More Historical Research Quotes
Africans and persons of African descent must assume the primary responsibility and leadership in historical research....if we are to continue to leave practically all important historical research and writing concerning the black race to the white man, then we must be prepared to accept, uncomplainingly, the white man's point of view. — Chancellor Williams
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
Coconut oil has been described as the “World's Healthiest Dietary Oil”. There is a mountain of historical evidence and medical research to verify this fact — Bruce Fife
I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it. — Jean M. Auel
The discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences. — Thomas Piketty
I have certainly amassed many historical research gathering skills. — Iris Chang
It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography. — John Dominic Crossan
Very strange bridges are used to make the passage from one state of things to another; we may lose sight of them in our surveys of general history, but their discovery is the glory of historical research. History is not the study of origins; rather it is the analysis of all the mediations by which the past was turned into our present. — Herbert Butterfield
America is a melting pot for all different groups of people, historically. And it's rare that the story of all of these people will be told in the history books. So I always felt I had to find out my history for myself and research my roots. — Nas
Those who remember only that the Roosevelts served hot dogs to the royals will be fascinated by this well-researched account of an historic and ennobling relationship - a great story! — James MacGregor Burns
Most architects work in studios largely divorced from academia, as if ideas, criticism and historical research were irrelevant. — David Chipperfield
historical research of the truly scholastic kind is not connected with human beings at all. It is a pure study, like higher mathematics. — C. V. Wedgwood
If it is impossible to judge merit and guilt in the field of natural science, then it is not possible in any field, and historical research becomes an idle, empty activity. — Justus von Liebig
I am not a fan of historical fiction that is sloppy in its research or is dishonest about the real history. — Kate Mosse
McIntosh is persuasive in his arguments that the scientific facts of evolution cannot stand alone ... science shows that historical evolution, whatever its contingencies, is itself on a trajectory of values development. McIntosh has well-researched his sources and integrated them with seminal insight. — Holmes Rolston III
I expressed skepticism, in the first chapter, about the utility of time machines in historical research. I especially advised against graduate students relying on them, because of the limited perspective you tend to get from being plunked down in some particular part of the past, and the danger of not getting back in time for your orals. — John Lewis Gaddis
It can be a long gap between the emergence of fully researched historical biographies. — Antonia Fraser
For me, the historical and genealogical library is the one I use. I'm working on, I'll say, it's a time travel novel. I haven't written very much of it. That's the dirty secret of the Cullman center: The writers don't write their fiction there, they just do their research. — Andrew Sean Greer
Historical research to this day remains unorganized, and the historian is expected to make his own instruments or do without them; and so with wooden ploughs we continue to draw lonely furrows, most successfully when we strike sand. — Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier
... All that we may ever hope to establish in historical research are facts and conditions but never causes. — Otto E. Neugebauer
The research in Ralph Keyes' The Quote Verifier is impressive, and each conclusion is like the solution to a real-life historical mystery. Who knew a reference book could be so entertaining? — Will Shortz
My drug of choice is historical research. — E. Lee Spence
The information technologies which were historically born from military research are, today, on the verge of developing an offensive capability of destruction, which could tomorrow, if we're not careful, completely destroy world peace. — Guy-Philippe Goldstein
Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light. — Michael Ondaatje
Problems come and go over time, and to understand why is a difficult historical task. If one wanted to find the origin of a problem, historical research and close attention to texts is what is needed, not unconstrained speculation about the 'pictures' that philosophers must be in the grip of. — Tim Crane
Research is always a very necessary part of my process because all of my books to this point have been historical. Time spent in the library adds to one's wealth as a writer or artist. — Floyd Cooper
Unless I'm writing trying to write about a historical figure, I don't really set out to read or research with a specific topic in mind. — Christine Sneed
I'm pleased to say that it [ a paper on the history of Attica] got much recognition with a 99 grade. It was shown to the Attica Historical Society, who enthusiastically responded to it and read it at one of their annual meetings resulting in an article in the local newspaper about this excellent paper being presented. As I now look back at it, I think of that as being really my first book and did indicate that I did have interest in research. — Paul Smith
Instead of giving it [war] a rest I continued pursuing more research, talking to more people on the subject as if I was to please this aftermath of the book by knowledge that was more historical and psychological than literary and aesthetical. — Sasa Stanisic
I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end. — Jami Attenberg
With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right. — Debra Dean
If one were to claim that the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq have been provided with "keys to heaven" by the Pentagon, would that need historical research to be disproved or would you just say, "That's just propaganda"? Indeed, how can you disprove the claim that U.S. soldiers have such keys? Or why should you disprove such ridiculous claims? It is the accusers who must provide the evidence. — Mohammad Marandi
There is no need for historical research. The war didn't take place a thousand years ago. Over a million Iranians served at one time or another in the war fronts and most of them are living ordinary lives today and are available for interviews. These stories are largely unknown in Iran and when I tell them to my friends or students they usually laugh. — Mohammad Marandi
So these liberals say historical research can't possibly discover the Jesus of faith, because the Jesus of faith is not rooted in history. He's merely a symbol. But listen: Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he's rooted in history. The Nicene Creed doesn't say, "We wish these things were true." It says, "Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and the third day he rose again from the dead,' and it goes on from there. — Gregory A. Boyd
When you read a history or biography you are entitled to imagine that it is as accurate as the authors can make it. That research has gone into it and we say "This is a history of the civil war, this is a biography of Lincoln" whatever. But you don't make any such supposition when you say "This is a historical novel." — Nicholas Meyer
If Holocaust happened, then those who bear the responsibility for it have to be punished, and not the Palestinians. Why isn't research into a deed that occurred 60 years ago permitted? After all, other historical occurrences, some of which lie several thousand years in the past, are open to research, and even the governments support this. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
If the Holocaust didn't take place, why then did this regime of occupation come about? Why do the European countries commit themselves to defending this regime? Permit me to make one more point. We are of the opinion that, if an historical occurrence conforms to the truth, this truth will be revealed all the more clearly if there is more research into it and more discussion about it. — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Saddam Hussein's mind would have been a unique resource for historical, political and psychological research: a resource that is now forever unavailable to scholars... In a small way his execution represents a wanton and vandalistic destruction of important research data. — Richard Dawkins
I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know. — Sarah Dessen
While researching my first book, I discovered so many fascinating tidbits that I wanted to share them with readers to remind them that while the book was fiction, the situations were based on historical realities - some of which were pretty hard to believe. — Julie Klassen
And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us. That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth. — Robert Penn Warren
My work has taken me from historical research to involvement in electronic publishing ventures to the directorship of the Harvard University Libraries. — Robert Darnton
Jews, Germans, and Allies is an important historical document, especially in light of those revisionists who would impose a universal amnesia about the suffering and losses incurred during the Holocaust. The grim statistics that Ms. Grossmann presents in her carefully researched and well-organized book carry evidence of the terrible truth. But the testimony of the survivors she quotes contains the final, ineradicable facts of history. — Hilma Wolitzer
With historicals, the research is half the fun. Contemporaries are especially easy. People are right out there in front of you; you meet them every day. You can concentrate wholly on the story and characters. — Heather Graham Pozzessere
One of the things I enjoy most about writing historical romance is researching inspiring backgrounds and settings. — Nicola Cornick
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