Eugene Robinson Quotes

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.

There is no such thing as a final draft of history.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product.

History may never have all the facts, but history always has the last word.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

Whoever writes on world history, but not as a forensic history, becomes thereby an accomplice.

If history starts as a guest list, it has a tendency to end like the memory of a drunken party: misheard, blurred, fragmentary.

History is neither a political fable in which all the brothers are valiant and all the sisters virtuous, nor is it a tabloid expose, full of crimes and follies, signifying nothing but victimization. There is, I must admit, a caustic delight in unveiling the frailties of our Jeffersons and our Lincolns, but the delight turns malevolent when it serves only to strip the American past of anything remarkable or exceptional, or when it demeans or discourages civic engagement and confidence.

One duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.

Writing history takes a great deal of imagination. I don’t mean making things up, but you have to be able to transport yourself to another time.

History written today is much more accurate than history written in the 18th century.

History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory. It might almost be said to be no science at all

The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.

Learning from history is impossible if the narrative is wrong.

Creative memory is the historian's most subtle opponent.

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

History is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.

History is an illogical record. It hinges on nothing. It is a story that changes, and has accidents, and recovers with scars.

History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. ...History will justify anything. It teaches precisely nothing, for it contains everything and furnishes examples of everything.

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

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

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

Whatever can be noted historically can be found within history.

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

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.