Steven Pressfield Quotes

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.

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

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.

In writing my historical novels, I have to rely upon my imagination to a great extent. I think of it as 'filling in the blanks.' Medieval chroniclers could be callously indifferent to the needs of future novelists. But I think there is a great difference between filling in the blanks and distorting known facts.

Nobody knows what really happened in any historical period. There are some periods where we know more than others, though.

I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.

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.

No, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers.

The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case.

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.

It is impossible to write ancient history because we do not have enough sources, and impossible to write modern history because we have far too many.

As a historian, you can only go as far as the evidence will take you.

We need to read history from the source.

Those who read the fiction assume that, because I'm also a historian, I know what I'm talking about.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

In the Making Of book ["300"] there's a guy named Victor Davis Hanson who is a a frickin genius. He's a Greek historian and we showed him the movie because I wanted him to write a forward to the Making Of book. I was a little nervous to be honest, because I wasn't sure how he'd react.

The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation.

History, when they do it, is ancient history, and they sensationalize even that. Contemporary history is virtually ignored on television.

What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?

When you read a history or biography you are entitled to imagine that it is as accurate as the authors can make it. That research has gone into it and we say "This is a history of the civil war, this is a biography of Lincoln" whatever. But you don't make any such supposition when you say "This is a historical novel."

There is one thing about knowing history, and another in recreating it.

People can burn archives; people can destroy evidence, but to say that history is perishable, that historical evidence is perishable, is different than saying that history is subjective.

A few hints as to the craft may be useful to budding historians. First and foremost, get writing!

We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true; but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.