A Quote by Samuel E. Morison
Every historian with professional standards speaks or writes what he believes to be true.
Related Quotes
The contemporary historian never writes such a true history as the historian of a later generation.
Suppose a student of mine writes in her exam that "morality is completely relative to culture, so nothing is absolutely right or wrong. Because of that, it is absolutely wrong to be culturally intolerant". This student, if she believes what she writes, believes a contradiction. She ought not to believe the contradiction - it's a basic epistemic norm. This is true even if she can't avoid believing it - no amount of studying will show her the light.
A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.
For every little kid who still believes in Santa Claus, there is at least one adult who still believes in professional wrestling.
Believe passionately in what you do, and never knowingly compromise your standards and values. Act like a true professional, aiming for true excellence, and the money will follow.
Certainly, every student and school ought to have standards and evaluation, but who sets those standards, and who writes the test? Whoever controls the test controls the school.
He who speaks, he who writes is above all one who speaks on behalf of all those who have no voice.
Every man who speaks out loud and clear is tinting the "Zeitgeist." Every man who expresses what he honestly thinks is true is changing the Spirit of the Times. Thinkers help other people to think, for they formulate what others are thinking. No person writes or thinks alone--thought is in the air, but its expression is necessary to create a tangible Spirit of the Times.
Every discipline develops standards of professional competence to which its workers are subject... Every scientific community is a society in the small, so to speak, with its own agencies of social control.
Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world.
Every person who speaks or writes for the public will make an occasional faux pas, and sooner or later will write or say something inappropriate.
Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.
Only the mediocre are always at their best. If your standards are low, it is easy to meet those standards every single day, every single year. But if your standard is to be the best, there will be days when you fall short of that goal. It is okay to not win every game. The only problem would be if you allow a loss or a failure to change your standards. Keep your standards intact, keep the bar set high, and continue to try your very best every day to meet those standards. If you do that, you can always be proud of the work that you do.
The neccessity for making a living keeps our minds so bound down to the details of professional success that we sometimes forget there is anything except professional success to live for. The necessity of conforming our habits and standards to the habits and standards of those about us, in order that we may do efficient work, makes us forget that there is a point where conformity ceases to be a virtue.
there was no crime in unconscious plagiarism; that I committed it everyday, that he committed it everyday, that every man alive on earth who writes or speaks commits it every day and not merely once or twice but every time he open his mouth… there is nothing of our own in it except some slight change born of our temperament, character, environment, teachings and associations
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired.
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