Samuel E. Morison Quotes

Yet enthusiasm is no excuse for the historian going off balance. He should remind the reader that outcomes were neither inevitable nor foreordained, but subject to a thousand changes and chances. - Samuel E. Morison

With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction. - Samuel E. Morison

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

Throughout this evolution from left to right, Beard always detested war. Hence his writings were slanted to show that the military side of history was insignificant or a mere reflection of economic forces. - Samuel E. Morison

So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out. - Samuel E. Morison

Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history. - Samuel E. Morison

Intellectual honesty is the quality that the public in free countries always has expected of historians; much more than that it does not expect, nor often get. - Samuel E. Morison

If a lecturer, he wishes to be heard; if a writer, to be read. He always hopes for a public beyond that of the long-suffering wife. - Samuel E. Morison

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