A Quote by Donald McCaig

I am no historian but have tried to stick tight to the facts.

Donald McCaig

Quote Topics

Am Facts Historian Stick Tight Tried

Quote Author

Donald McCaig
American - Novelist
Born: January 1, 1940

History consists of a corpus ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish in the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him.

Edward Hallett Carr

I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian.

Howard Zinn

The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context

Edward Hallett Carr

I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.

H. G. Wells

The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend, partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use - these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation.

Edward Hallett Carr

I may remind you that history is not a branch of literature. The facts of history, like the facts of geology or astronomy, can supply material for literary art; for manifest reasons they lend themselves to artistic representation far more readily than those of the natural sciences; but to clothe the story of human society in a literary dress is no more the part of a historian as a historian, than it is the part of an astronomer as an astronomer to present in an artistic shape the story of the stars.

J. B. Bury

The true historian, therefore, seeking to compose a true picture of the thing acted, must collect facts and combine facts. Methods will differ, styles will differ. Nobody ever does anything like anybody else; but the end in view is generally the same, and the historian's end is truthful narration. Maxims he will have, if he is wise, never a one; and as for a moral, if he tell his story well, it will need none; if he tell it ill, it will deserve none.

Augustine Birrell

I entirely agree that a historian ought to be precise in detail; but unless you take all the characters and circumstances into account, you are reckoning without the facts. The proportions and relations of things are just as much facts as the things themselves.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view. Facts don't do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around. Facts are living turned inside out.

David Byrne

From what I can tell, pollsters are generally fairly stick-to-the-facts folks. They deal in facts and statistics.

Sharyl Attkisson

They tried to put me at tight end once, but I would end up just blocking people when they were actually trying to throw the ball to me. I was probably in middle school. It just didn't stick. Except on running plays.

Edwin Jackson

You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. Stick to Facts, sir!

Charles Dickens

We tried - we tried for a year, and we tried different methods and different - and I had in vitro and it didn't work. It didn't stick. It didn't - didn't produce a baby at all.