Charles Peguy Quotes

History is obviously dependent on the evidence, and it's always amazing to me how much evidence there is.

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.

I conduct very few interviews with veterans. The contemporaneous, or near-contemporaneous, record for WWII is so spectacularly deep that latter-day recollections are largely unnecessary for a historian. Of course, in considering any account, I'm looking for additional sources that can confirm or enlarge that version of events.

Nobody knows what really happened in any historical period. There are some periods where we know more than others, though.

I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.

I study history in order to give an interpretation.

In reconstructing the past, historians generally are compelled to rely on accounts written after the event by participants and witnesses, or on the hearsay versions of those who learned at second-hand what had occurred. Such writings are subject to the infirmities of recollection, or of bias arising from allegiance to one side or the other.

History consists of facts attested to by evidence.

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.

Good history is a portal to the past.

As a historian, you can only go as far as the evidence will take you.

I would love to be an historian. I'm a bit of a history geek and love books and programmes on the subject.

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

Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

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

I am a historian. I do a lot of research, and I try to get it right.

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

As an author of narrative history, I read a lot of history books.

I like reading about the past. I'm definitely not a history buff, but I do read a bit of history now and again, and to do that for work is really exciting.

So history is fertile territory for me and I think I could feel happy with any period of history, provided I had the right sources and the necessary time for the initial research.

The only way to find out anything about what kinds of lives people led in any given period is to tunnel into their records and to let them speak for themselves.

In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.

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

I like historical things; I like researching things.