Plutarch Quotes

The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history?

The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.

The historian has a special obligation to sobriety and fidelity to the record.

In reconstructing the past, historians generally are compelled to rely on accounts written after the event by participants and witnesses, or on the hearsay versions of those who learned at second-hand what had occurred. Such writings are subject to the infirmities of recollection, or of bias arising from allegiance to one side or the other.

Lies are beginning to be solidified and made into historical fact…. The truth is all I want for history.

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

Who doesn't know that the first law of history is not to dare to say anything false, and the second is not to refrain from saying anything true?

It must be recognized that the real truths of history are hard to discover. Happily, for the most part, they are rather matters of curiosity than of real importance.

History is not history unless it is the truth.

Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth.

As a journalist, the details always tell the story.

After all, the ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth.

I would never lie to anyone about history.

Science is about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.

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.

I've been reading a lot of books on history, and watching a lot of educational TV. Wikipedia too, even though it is not reliable.

I said that I'm only there to write the truth, I'm not going to cover anything up, but I'll put everything in context and get as close to the truth of this person as I can.

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.

When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.

I like historical things; I like researching things.

The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesn't enter into it.

Accuracy is paramount in every detail of a work of history. Here's my rule: Ask yourself, 'Did this thing happen?' If the answer is yes, then it's historical. Then ask, 'Did this thing happen precisely this way?' If the answer is yes, then it's history; if the answer is no, not precisely this way, then it's historical drama.

What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.

It becomes him that writes an History, sometimes to extol enemies in his praises, when their praise worthy actions bespeak it, and at the same time to reprove the best friends, when their deeds appear worthy of a reproof; in-as-much as History is good for nothing, if truth (which is the very eye of the animal) be not in it.