Top 10 Quotes by Leopold von Ranke

To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire. It wants only to show what actually [essentially?]

To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire. It wants only to show what actually [essentially?] happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen).

Leopold von Ranke

Past, Judging, Office

It is striking how history, when resting on the memory of men, always touches the bounds of mythology.

Leopold von Ranke

Memories, Men, History

Leopold von Ranke (1840). “The ecclesiastical and political history of the popes of Rome during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”

You have reckoned that history ought to judge the past and to instruct the contemporary world as to the future. The present attempt does not yield to that high office. It will merely tell how it really was.

Leopold von Ranke

Past, Yield, History