Francois Rene de Chateaubriand Quotes

The good historian is not for any time or any country: while he loves his fatherland, he never flatters it in anything.

The historian must walk a fine line between scientific detachment and humanistic engagement.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies.

Whenever one assumes the role of historian, friendship and enmities have to be forgotten. Often one has to bestow on adversaries the highest praise…. I hope to satisfy … by appealing to the evidence of actual events and of eyewitnesses.

Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred

The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies; but he cannot wholly escape their influence.

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

My opinion is that politicians should be humble in the face of history. And whenever history is a matter of debate, it should be left in the hands of historians and experts.

Every historian has informally an anthropology, without ever using the word.

I worship impersonal Nature, which is neither 'good' or 'bad', and who knows neither love nor hatred.

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

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

It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.

In the old days... it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.

A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.

Historians of the future will examine how and why, the end disappearing behind the means, the Communists spirit ceased to be opposed to the Fascist spirit, and even to be differentiated from it.

It becomes him that writes an History, sometimes to extol enemies in his praises, when their praise worthy actions bespeak it, and at the same time to reprove the best friends, when their deeds appear worthy of a reproof; in-as-much as History is good for nothing, if truth (which is the very eye of the animal) be not in it.

In the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'

There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.

Historical truth is that, and that alone, which reveals the forces that go to mold the social life of mankind.

One must be careful not to prejudge the past.

As a pundit, it's important to tell the viewer something they might not know, be unbiased and not sit on the fence.

The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.

All historians, even the most scientific, have bias, if in no other sense than the determination not to have any.