Samuel Eliot Morison Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

Intellectual honesty is the quality that the public in free countries always has expected of historians; much more than that it does not expect, nor often get.

Samuel Eliot Morison
A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race [the Yankees]; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and subject to waves of religious emotion.... A race whose typical member is eternally torn between a passion for righteousness and a desire to get on in the world.

Samuel Eliot Morison
America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.

Samuel Eliot Morison
Make no mistake; the American Revolution was not fought to obtain freedom, but to preserve the liberties that Americans already had as colonials. Independence was no conscious goal, secretly nurtured in cellar or jungle by bearded conspirators, but a reluctant last resort, to preserve "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Samuel Eliot Morison
An historian should yield himself to his subject, become immersed in the place and period of his choice, standing apart from it now and then for a fresh view.

Samuel Eliot Morison
A few hints as to literary craftsmanship may be useful to budding historians. First and foremost,

Samuel Eliot Morison
With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction.

Samuel Eliot Morison
Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history.

Samuel Eliot Morison
Military and absolutist regimes are undoubtedly well fitted to get the jump on an unsuspecting or unprepared enemy; but the history of modern warfare proves that they cannot win over representative governments in the long run, provided that people behind those governments have the heart to sustain initial punishment, and both the will and the resources to fight back.

Samuel Eliot Morison
So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.

Samuel Eliot Morison
Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis.

Samuel Eliot Morison
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