Geoffrey Elton Quotes

• If historians are not skeptical, they are nothing.

  Geoffrey Elton

  Historian, Skeptical, Ifs

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• Since historical reconstruction is a rational process, only justified and indeed possible if it involves the human reason, what we call history is the mess we call life reduced to some order. pattern and possibly purpose.

  Geoffrey Elton

  Order, History, Historical

  27 Copy quote

• History will help to remedy intellectual faults such as excessive concentration on one line of thought, absence of understanding for other points of view, belief in simple solutions, lack of balance of mind, absence of an imaginative understanding.

  Geoffrey Elton

  Simple, Views, Understanding

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• When I meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men, great men moreover in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian, and there are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchill -- whether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains quite simply, a great man.

  Geoffrey Elton

  Men, Thinking, Careers

  1970 Political History, ch.2.

  26 Copy quote

• The future is dark, the present burdensome. Only the past, dead and buried, bears contemplation.

  Geoffrey Elton

  Dark, Past, History

  20 Copy quote

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