A Quote by Edward Hallett Carr

What distinguishes the historian from the collector of historical facts is generalization.

Edward Hallett Carr

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Collector Distinguishes Facts Generalization Historian Historical Historical Facts

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Edward Hallett Carr
British - Journalist
June 28, 1892 - November 3, 1982

A scientist is no more a collector and classifier of facts than a historian is a man who complies and classifies a chronology of the dates of great battles and major discoveries.

Peter Medawar

A mere collector of supposed facts is as useful as a collector of matchboxes.

Lucien Febvre

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

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

Barbara Tuchman

In 'Labor Day Hurricane, 1935,' Douglas Trevor vividly recreates a historical event. While that is the only story in A THIN TEAR IN THE FABRIC OF SPACE in the historical past, many of the other stories juxtapose fact-both historical and scientific-with narration to an engaging effect, one that distinguishes the voice of this new writer.

Stuart Dybek

If, occasionally, historical evidence does not square with formulated laws, it should be remembered that a law is but a deduction from experience and experiment, and therefore laws must conform with historical facts, not facts with laws.

Immanuel Velikovsky

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'm a collector. I was born a collector. I came out of the womb a collector. I can trace it back to childhood - collecting used keys.

Micah Lexier

Particular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.

Claude Bernard

Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis.

Samuel E. Morison

I write novels, mostly historical ones, and I try hard to keep them accurate as to historical facts, milieu and flavor.

Gary Jennings

What distinguishes the historical social system we are calling historical capitalism is that in this historical system capital came to be used (invested) in a very special way. It came to be used with the primary objective or intent of self-expansion. In this system, past accumulations were 'capital' only to the extend they were used to accumulate more of the same.

Immanuel Wallerstein

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

Samuel Johnson

The first man who said "fire burns" was employing scientific method, at any rate if he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed through the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, what scientific technique demands - a careful choice of significant facts on the one hand, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than my mere generalization.

Bertrand Russell

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

A Quote by Edward Hallett Carr

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