Michael Ondaatje Quotes

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

The quarrel of the sociologists with the historians is that the latter have learned so much about how to do it that they have forgotten what to do. They have become so skilled in finding facts that they have no use for the truths that would make the facts worth finding.

I have certainly amassed many historical research gathering skills.

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

I don't do research. I never have.

I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it.

I really enjoy researching, and for almost every piece, I research enough to write a book.

The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.

I'm a historian, and that freaks me out.

I love researching, I love interviewing.

If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right. If you don't get all the facts, it can't be right.

I write to learn the flow of history.

The best historian is he who combines knowledge of the evidence with the largest intellect, the warmest human sympathy and the highest imaginative powers.

I am addicted to research, let's say.

The task of understanding the past is neverending.

In history, as in traveling, men usually see only what they already had in their own minds; and few learn much from history, who do not bring much with them to its study.

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.

To do successful research, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know one thing that isn't known.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

I'm a research queen.

Since my work is theoretical, the financial needs are very little. Doing the research itself is the toughest challenge.

I enjoy the act of research. I'm researching as a means to an end, but I literally just enjoy reading about how people lived in the past and understanding it better.

To have real issues to delve into, research-wise, always makes it a lot more satisfying to me. I can pull from a lot of resources and put them into my work and just have as much information as possible.