Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes. – Voltaire

A mere compilation of facts presents only the skeleton of History; we do but little for her if we cannot invest her with life, clothe her in the habiliments of her day, and enable her to call forth the sympathies of succeeding generations. – Hannah Farnham Lee, The Huguenots in France and America

[W]hen a historian enters into metaphysics he has gone to a far country from whose bourne he will never return a historian. – Shailer Mathews, The Spiritual Interpretation of History

No one can really know the life of his own day, let alone that of times long past. Always the historian sees as in a mirror darkly, the reds and the golds rendered drab by the shadows of time. – Earl R. Beck, On Teaching History in Colleges and Universities