Susan Vreeland Quotes

The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines.

Even historians with knowledge of the event, and with the materials before them on which to form a judgment, see but little way into the causes and consequences of the great events in human history.

Leave history to historians.

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

I should add that it is open to debate whether what we call the writing of history these days is truly scientific.

History is only conjecture, and the best historians try to do it as accurately as they can. They try to accurately reassemble the facts and then put them down on paper.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.

Historians are not good at hypothetical questions.

Our understanding of the thought of the past is liable to be the more adequate, the less the historian is convinced of the superiority of his own point of view, or the more he is prepared to admit the possibility that he may have to learn something, not merely about the thinkers of the past, but from them.

Confronted by an unknowable, historians demand evidence, witnesses, corroboration.

I write to learn the flow of history.

Only by painting the great panorama of history, can the great history-reading public be entertained or satisfied.

History does not produce definitive answers for all time. It is a process.

I tend to think history is more a branch of literature than science.

History is not only a particular branch of knowledge, but a particular mode and method of knowledge in other branches.

I used my history degree about twice a year whether I needed to or not.

The easiest way of change history is to become a historian.

Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.

American history is a quagmire, and the more one knows, the quaggier the mire gets.

History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.

Learning history is easy; learning its lessons seems almost impossibly difficult.

History must speak for itself. A historian is content if he has been able to shed more light.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

History is a strange experience. The world is quite small now; but history is large and deep. Sometimes you can go much farther by sitting in your own home and reading a book of history, than by getting onto a ship or an airplane and traveling a thousand miles.