The man who first gave history a recognized place in science was an ancient historian.
James H. Breasted

The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.
Goldwin Smith

The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind.
Samuel E. Morison

The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.
B. H. Liddell Hart

The writer's language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.
Paul de Man

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
Barbara Tuchman

Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis.
Samuel E. Morison

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

What is a historian, anyway? It is someone who uses facts to record the development of humanity.
Lion Feuchtwanger

Yet enthusiasm is no excuse for the historian going off balance. He should remind the reader that outcomes were neither inevitable nor foreordained, but subject to a thousand changes and chances.
Samuel E. Morison

You need, as a historian, essential triangulation from your subject and the only way you get that triangulation is through time.
Ken Burns

You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment as to what facts to omit in order to make their book into some shape, some length that can be managed.
Oliver Stone