James Henry Breasted Quotes

The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical."

The power of historical fiction for bad and for good can be immense in shaping consciousness of the past.

Most of us, I think, are conscious of history swirling around outside the door, but when we're in the house, we're usually not dealing with history. We're not thinking about history.

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

I think people in general have neglected to learn about history.

I really feel sorry for kids who aren't interested in history - recent history, either, because it is this that made us what we are.

I don't think you should ever run from history. You should learn from it and embrace it.

I was always deeply aware that I was living in history.

Americans are in vital need of the instruction that historians can provide.

I had access to books, and I could read... but that more foundational, basic historical awareness, I didn't have any of that.

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

A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.

To have a sense of history one must consider oneself a piece of history.

We need history, not to tell us what happened or to explain the past, but to make the past alive so that it can explain us and make a future possible.

I decided that what I really wanted to do was to make my writing in history deeper, if that's the right word to use. And that is what I did.

To think historically is almost the same thing now as if in all ages history had been made according to theory.

History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.

History is the open Bible: we historians are not priests to expound it infallibly: our function is to teach people to read it and to reflect upon it for themselves.

History is too often the refuge of the tidy-minded, making neat patterns when the dust has settled.

As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our day.

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

One should live with history round one.

I don't think it's such a bad idea that people learn the same history in school. I think it tends to ground people and give them something to respond to and react against.

I love history, and I thought I knew history well, but I was shocked by how little I knew about it.

We knew in our gut that History needed to be more than a timeline.