19th-century Historian Quotes

H. G. Wells

Jules Michelet

Pierre de Coubertin

Alexis de Tocqueville

Arnold J. Toynbee

Henri Pirenne

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Leadership is particularly necessary to ensure ready acceptance of the unfamiliar and that which is contrary to tradition.

In all parts of the Old World, as well as of the New, it was evident that Columbus had kindled a fire in every mariner's heart. That fire was the harbinger of a new era, for it was not to be extinguished.

Charles Kendall Adams

You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It only wants to show what actually happened.

Leopold von Ranke

Individual ambition is undoubtedly a strong motive in student work, but there is such a thing among students everywhere as ambition for others, call it class spirit, esprit de corps, good fellowship, or good will to men.

Herbert Baxter Adams

Wilson was a visionary who liked to identify himself with "forward-looking man"; Harding … was as old-fashioned as those wooden Indians which used to stand in front of cigar stores.... Wilson thought in terms of the whole world; Harding was for America first. And, finally, whereas Wilson wanted America to exert itself nobly, Harding wanted to give it a rest.

Frederick Lewis Allen

Nature, even if we hesitate to call it good, is infinitely interesting, infinitely beautiful.

An excellent monument might be erected to the Unknown Stockholder. It might take the form of a solid stone ark of faith apparently floating in a pool of water.

Felix Riesenberg

We investigate the past not to deduce practical political lessons, but to find out what really happened.

Thomas Frederick Tout

The Jews emerge into history, not a nation of keen spiritual aspirations and altruistic ethics, but that pagan people, worshipping rocks, sheep and cattle, and spirits of caves and wells, of whom the Old Testament, tending towards its higher ideal, gives fragmentary but convincing evidence.

James T. Shotwell

Imagination plays too important a role in the writing of history, and what is imagination but the projection of the author's personality.

Since bad men find the rule of kings no less burdensome than that of tyrants, the recognition of the right of private citizens to kill tyrants involves rather more chance of losing a king than of being relieved of a tyrant.

William Archibald Dunning

Since the earliest times it is as the exploiter that the Jew has been known amongst his fellow men of all races and creeds. Moreover, he has persistently shown himself ungrateful... The Jews have always formed a rebellious element in every state.

Nesta Helen Webster

Olympism is not a system - it is a state of mind. This state of mind has emerged from a double cult: that of effort and that of Eurythmy - a taste of excess and a taste of measure combined.

Pierre de Coubertin

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

Historically the buffalo had more influence on man than all other Plains animals combined. It was life, food, raiment, and shelter to the Indians. The buffalo and the Plains Indians lived together, and together passed away. The year 1876 marks practically the end of both.

Walter Prescott Webb

The introduction of the Christian religion into the world has produced an incalculable change in history. There had previously been only a history of nations — there is now a history of mankind; and the idea of an education of human nature as a whole, — an education the work of Jesus Christ Himself — is become like a compass for the historian, the key of history, and the hope of nations.

Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné

History is past politics, and politics is present history.

Edward Augustus Freeman

When we take into account the political conditions, religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians. Having stayed behind in the extreme north, they were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which went further south...

History is a living whole. If one organ be removed, it is nothing but a lifeless mass.

Frederic Harrison

To have a true idea of man or of life, one must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once.

Hippolyte Taine

A "Crucial Experiment" is Impossible in Physics.

Froude informs the Scottish youth
That parsons do not care for truth.
The Reverend Canon Kingsley cries
History is a pack of lies.
What cause for judgements so malign?
A brief reflection solves the mystery—
Froude believes Kingsley a divine,
And Kingsley goes to Froude for history.

Shivaji proved, by his example, that the Hindu race could build a nation, found a State, defeat its enemies; they could conduct their own defence; they could protect and promote literature and art, commerce and industry; they could maintain navies and ocean going fleets of their own, and conduct naval battles on equal terms with foreigners. He taught the modern Hindus to rise to the full stature of their growth. He demonstrated that the tree of Hinduism was not dead, and that it could put forth new leaves and branches and once again rise up its head to the skies.

Jadunath Sarkar

Haiku... meditations... starting points for trains of thought

Harold Gould Henderson

Tact is not only kindness, but kindness skillfully extended.

James G. Randall