“Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.”

— Herodotus

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.
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Herodotus 42

ancient Greek historian, often considered as the first hist… -484–-425 BC

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