Ken Burns Quotes

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

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

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.

As a historian, I love every little detail, but whole long passages about wood paneling and journeys on horseback and every stop at every inn had to go out the window. I decided the history in the books should be like spice in a soup - a little went a long way. Like cilantro.

We can be revisionist, and that's a good thing to be at times, but we shouldn't airbrush our history, so we can only make judgments in the objective conditions of that time.

I study history in order to give an interpretation.

We need to read history from the source.

History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened.

Leave history to historians.

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.

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

The duty of a historian is simply to understand and then convey that understanding, no more than that.

Every historian discloses a new horizon.

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

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.

So this was the big secret historians keep to themselves: historical research is wildly seductive and fun. There's a thrill in the process of digging, then piecing together details like a puzzle.

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.

All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is very, very small.

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.

I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: 'There's no further new material; there are only new questions.'

History is a facsimile of events held together by finally biographical information.

The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case.

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. This is what makes the trade of historian so attractive.

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.

Whoever writes on world history, but not as a forensic history, becomes thereby an accomplice.