{"quotes":[{"text":"The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from.","author":"John Still","tags":["history","historians"],"id":10010,"author_id":"John+Still"},{"text":"It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals  and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us.","author":"E. M. Forster","tags":["history","historians"],"id":13233,"author_id":"E.+M.+Forster"},{"text":"The rich experience of history teaches that up to now not a single class has voluntarily made way for another class.","author":"Joseph Stalin","tags":["history","historians"],"id":20686,"author_id":"Joseph+Stalin"},{"text":"The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.","author":"Stendhal","tags":["history","historians"],"id":28421,"author_id":"Stendhal"},{"text":"The most striking difference between the ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality. In other words, one destroyed the dignity of human thought whereas the others destroy the dignity of human action. The old manipulators of logic were the concern of the philosopher, whereas the modern manipulators of facts stand in the way of the historian. For history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility—based upon the fact that it is enacted by men and therefore can be understood by men—is in danger, whenever facts are no longer held to be part and parcel of the past and present world, and are misused to prove this or that opinion.","author":"Hannah Arendt","tags":["1968","antisemitism","communism","historians","history","ideology","marxism","post-factual","post-truth","race-theory","reality-control","sophism","totalitarianism"],"id":30590,"author_id":"Hannah+Arendt"},{"text":"A historian tries to understand what happened, why it happened, what was the context, who did what, and what assumptions led them to act as they did. A historian customarily displays a certain diffidence about trying to influence events, knowing that unanticipated developments often lead to unintended consequences.","author":"Diane Ravitch","tags":["historians","history"],"id":33100,"author_id":"Diane+Ravitch"},{"text":"Chicks dig historians.","author":"Cynthia Hand","tags":["historian","historians","history","humor"],"id":37222,"author_id":"Cynthia+Hand"},{"text":"It is not acceptable that election winners interpret history. History should be left to historians who have a difficult task. They should try to avoid a one-sided or personal interpretation of history. Furthermore, some collective factors (such as national enthusiasm) may influence objectivity that is crucial for the interpretation of historical events.","author":"Eraldo Banovac","tags":["election-winners","historians","history","history-interpretation","history","objectivity","objectivity","philosophy","philosophy","sociology","sociology"],"id":38747,"author_id":"Eraldo+Banovac"},{"text":"It is the vice of the journalist, I once wrote, to think that history can always be reduced to experience, and of the scholar to think that experience can always be reduced to history. History and experience are far more frequently out of sync, or running on parallel tracks.","author":"Adam Gopnik","tags":["experience","historians","history","journalism","journalists","scholars"],"id":42924,"author_id":"Adam+Gopnik"},{"text":"It has been said that though God cannot alter the past  historians can - it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.","author":"Samuel Butler","tags":["history","historians"],"id":46966,"author_id":"Samuel+Butler"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":97,"pages":10,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}