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Historical Knowledge Quotes

All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that

All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.

Edward Said
Historical Knowledge, Data, Purpose
Edward W. Said (2015). “Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World”, p.240, Vintage

Historical knowledge is indispensable for those who want to build a better world

Ludwig von Mises
Historical Knowledge, World, Want
Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

The bases for historical knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in the guise of wars or revolutions.

Paul de Man
War, Historical Knowledge, Revolution
Paul de Man (2013). “Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism”, p.165, Routledge

On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.

Hu Shih
Historical Knowledge, Self, Achievement
Hu Shih (2013). “English Writings of Hu Shih: Literature and Society”, p.99, Springer Science & Business Media

Genuine historical knowledge requires nobility of character, a profound understanding of human existence - not detachment and objectivity.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Character, Historical Knowledge, Objectivity

The mere notion of photography, when we introduce it into our meditation on the genesis of historical knowledge and its true value, suggests the simple question: Could such and such a fact, as it is narrated here, have been photographed?

Paul Valery
Photography, Simple, Historical Knowledge

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