Documentary Proof Quotes

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

All history, so far as it is not supported by contemporary evidence, is romance.

I don't have a birth certificate.

Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we're shown a photograph of it.

A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture

David Irving has consistenly applied an evidential double standard, demanding absolute documentary proof to convict the Germans (as when he sought to show that Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust), while relying on circumstantial evidence to condemn the British (as in his account of the Allied bombing of Dresden).

There's something very reassuring... about the written record.

Everything that you see in 'Unhinged' that's quoted can be verified as documented and corroborated.

History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.

Now documentary evidence is acceptable. What does that mean? If you have documentary evidence that a person served as a guard in one of the death camps and the documents have been authenticated, that is grounds to charge the person with crimes against humanity. And that's why you see the spate of trials previously, for example, in the '70s and the '80s, even in the low '90s. That was not the case until the change in the law.

A photograph presents itself not only as a visual representation, but as evidence, more convincing than a painting because of the unimpeachable mechanical means whereby it was made. We do not trust the artist's flattering hand; but we do trust film, and shadows, and light.

The picture itself is a document. How do you mean? We're looking at a document. It gives you clues.

Yes, you need a passport to prove to the world that you exist. The people at passport control, they cannot look at you and see you are a person. No! They have to look at a little photograph of you. Then they believe you exist.

Documents create a paper reality we call proof.