“The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”
E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor
Time (26 June 2006)
“The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened.”
— Lucian
Sect. 39; vol. 2, p. 128; H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (trans.) The Works of Lucian of Samosata.
How to Write History
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Lucian17
ancient Greek writer 120Related quotes
“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”
Julian Barnes (1946) English writer
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Herodotus (-484–-425 BC) ancient Greek historian, often considered as the first historian
This statement is not to be found in the works of Herodotus. It appears in the acknowledgements to Mark Twain's A Horse's Tale (1907) preceded by the words "Herodotus says", but Twain was simply summarizing what he took to be Herodotus' attitude to historiography.
Misattributed
Mark Twain book A Horse's Tale
Acknowledgements
Twain does not quote Herodotus here, he only sums up what he believes to have been Herodotus' approach to the writing of history. Nevertheless, this apocryphal statement is now often quoted as being the very words of Herodotus.
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“For me, the historian's principal task should be to raise the dead to life.”
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Introduction
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003)
Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)
Pastor Jón Prímus
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian
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Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer
Source: Time Cat
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2011, Tucson Memorial Address (January 2011)
Context: Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "when I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.