J. B. Bury: Fact

J. B. Bury was Irish historian and freethinker. Explore interesting quotes on fact.

J. B. Bury: 22 quotes1 like

“The doubts that Mr. Balfour expressed nearly thirty years ago, in an Address delivered in Glasgow, have not, so far, been answered. And it is probable that many people, to whom six years ago the notion of a sudden decline or break-up of our western civilisation, as a result not of cosmic forces but of its own development, would have appeared almost fantastic, will feel much less confident to-day, notwithstanding the fact that the leading nations of the world have instituted a league of peoples for the prevention of war, the measure to which so many high priests of Progress have looked forward as meaning a long stride forward on the road to Utopia.”

J. B. Bury

referring to Arthur Balfour's A Fragment on Progress https://books.google.com/books?id=voxJAAAAYAAJ (1891) <br class="br">The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and Growth (1921)

“Polybius is not less express than Thucydides in asserting the principle that accurate representation of facts was the fundamental duty of the historian. He lays down that three things are requisite for performing such a task as his: the study and criticism of sources; autopsy, that is, personal knowledge of lands and places; and thirdly, political experience.”

J. B. Bury

p. 197 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t2g73zj2z;view=1up;seq=215 <br class="br">The Ancient Greek Historians (1909)

“It has been said that Homer was the Bible of the Greeks. The remark exactly misses the truth. The Greeks fortunately had no Bible, and this fact was both an expression and an important condition of their freedom. Homer's poems were secular, not religious, and it may be noted that they are freer from immorality and savagery than sacred books that one could mention.”

J. B. Bury book A History of Freedom of Thought

p. 24 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t71v5g25n;view=1up;seq=28 <br class="br">A History of Freedom of Thought (1913)