[H]istory is the sextant of states which, tossed by wind and current, would be lost in confusion if they could not fix their position. – Allan Nevins, The Gateway to History

A mind devoid of prepossessions is likely to be devoid of all mental furniture. And the historian who thinks that he can clean his mind as he would a slate with a wet sponge, is ignorant of the simplest facts of mental life. – Allen Johnson, The Historian and Historical Evidence

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. – Aristotle