Qualities absolutely necessary for a historian: (1) Imagination. (2) Prejudice. (3) The power of writing your own biography at the read more

Qualities absolutely necessary for a historian: (1) Imagination. (2) Prejudice. (3) The power of writing your own biography at the same time.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

Give the historians something to write about.

Give the historians something to write about.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

No historian can take part with--or against--the forces he has to study. To him even the extinction of the human read more

No historian can take part with--or against--the forces he has to study. To him even the extinction of the human race should merely be a fact to be grouped with other vital statistics.

The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.

The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.

History's like a story in a way: it depends on who's telling it.

History's like a story in a way: it depends on who's telling it.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deitits and so forth, as distinguished read more

Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deitits and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.