George W. Bush Quotes

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

You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment as to what facts to omit in order to make their book into some shape, some length that can be managed.

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

A lot of what we think of as history is actually just a version of events which may or may not be true.

Most academic historians accept that historians' own circumstances demand that they tell the story in a particular way, of course. While people wring their hands about 'revisionist' historians; on some level, the correction and amplification of various parts of the past is not 'revisionism' as it is simply the process of any historical writing.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

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.

While historians may go on attempting grand, sweeping and defining narratives, they work in a time when readers know that another narrative always lies in wait, and that the more intelligent an historian is, the more tentative and self-scrutinizing the tone.

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.

History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other.

History is too serious to be left to historians.

No two historians offer precisely the same reading of an historical event; if we did, far fewer articles and books would be published.

Learning from history is impossible if the narrative is wrong.

The challenge for a writer looking at history is to figure out what is history and what is myth. After all, what you are looking at is an interpretation of history, and so at some level, it becomes an interpretation of an interpretation.

Even the most meticulous historians work subjectively. The historian's point of view, his or her selection of subject and sources, the emphasis, the tone - all of these lead to subjective history, inevitably so. I do not say this as a criticism, merely as an observation.

History must always be taken with a grain of salt. It is, after all, not a science but an art.

What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement.

The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.

Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation.

The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.

As a historian I understand how histories are written. My enemies will write histories that dismiss me and prove I was unimportant. My friends will write histories that glorify me and prove I was more important than I was. And two generations or three from now, some serious sober historian will write a history that sort of implies I was whoever I was.

My opinion is that politicians should be humble in the face of history. And whenever history is a matter of debate, it should be left in the hands of historians and experts.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

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

I can read a newspaper article, and it might trigger something else in my mind. I often like to choose in historical fiction things or subject matter I don't feel have been given a fair shake in history.