Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history.
Samuel E. Morison

Historical methodology, as I see it, is a product of common sense applied to circumstances.
Samuel E. Morison

Intellectual honesty is the quality that the public in free countries always has expected of historians; much more than that it does not expect, nor often get.
Samuel E. Morison

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.
Samuel E. Morison

Courses on historical methodology are not worth the time that they take up. I shall never give one myself, and I have observed that many of my colleagues who do give such courses refrain from exemplifying their methods by writing anything.
Samuel E. Morison

With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction.
Samuel E. Morison

So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.
Samuel E. Morison

Throughout this evolution from left to right, Beard always detested war. Hence his writings were slanted to show that the military side of history was insignificant or a mere reflection of economic forces.
Samuel E. Morison