The function off the historian is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as the key to the understanding of the present.

What distinguishes the historian from the collector of historical facts is generalization.

Change is certain. Progress is not.

Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.

History consists of a corpus ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish in the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him.

History is preoccupied with fundamental processes of change. If you are allergic to these processes, you abandon history and take cover in the social sciences. Today anthropology, sociology, etc, flourish. History is sick. But then our society too is sick