American Historian Quotes

Washington Irving

Howard Zinn

William H. Prescott

Cotton Mather

Samuel Eliot Morison

Barbara W. Tuchman

George Bancroft

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

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

Contention is inseparable from creating knowledge. It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.

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

Whoever would understand the character of Washington, in all its compass and grandeur, must learn it from his own writings, and from a complete history of his country during the long period in which he was the most prominent actor.

The world changed while I slept, and much to my surprise, no one had consulted me.

His mind had one compartment for right and one for wrong, but no middle chamber where the two could commingle.

Howard K. Beale

The prison life of the past looks in our own time like liberation itself.

Christopher Lasch

Teaching is too vital an occupation to be left to the lazy or greedy or negative

Eliot Wigginton

It was an old lesson learned by governments: that war solves problems of control.

Never, in these United States, has the brain of man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing as a clipper ship.

Samuel Eliot Morison

We cherish the conventional story of Dr. King and nonviolence, in fact, precisely because that narrative demands so little of us…This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened.

History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.

Theodore H. White

The light of Christ illuminates the laboratory, his speech is the fount of communication, he makes possible the study of humans in all their interactions, he is the source of all life, he provides the wherewithal for every achievement of human civilization, he is the telos of all that is beautiful. He is, among his many other titles, the Christ of the academic road.

It may well be that men of science, not kings, or warriors, or even statesmen are to be the heroes of the future.

Charles A. Beard

Originality is what distinguishes art from craft. It is the yardstick of artistic greatness.

The intrusion of history is not just theoretical. It is also the legacy of being an accomplice or a victim, or just an onlooker. In each case, history entails the uncomfortable presence of earlier unresolved roles.

Charles S. Maier

'Good wine needs no bush', and if there were need to urge the reading of history it would be proof that history is too dull and unattractive to be read.

Albert Bushnell Hart

Knowing the past is as astonishing a performance as knowing the stars.

It is only when the maker of things is a maker of things by vocation, and not merely holding down a job, that the price of things is approximate to their real value....

Ananda Coomaraswamy

His [the Virginian's] dream was to found an aristocratic republic, in which superior individuals would emerge to rule the many.

Clifford Dowdey

The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had not been the object of Washington's global attacks. There had never been an International Communist Conspiracy. The enemy was, and remains, any government or movement, or even individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the American Empire; by whatever name the US gives to the enemy - communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist.

It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.

In Philadelphia, Philadelphians feel, the Right Thing is more natural and more firmly bred into [them] than anywhere else.

Stephen Birmingham

Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life.

David McCullough