Henry Thomas Buckle quotes

Henry Thomas Buckle was an English historian and author, best known for his work "History of Civilization in England." His writings emphasized the role of scientific laws and statistics in understanding human progress. He explored the idea that history is shaped more by intellectual and social forces than by individual actions. Here are 5 of his quotes:

When the interval between the intellectual classes and the practical classes is too great, the former will possess no influence, the latter will reap no benefits.

Henry Thomas Buckle

And, notwithstanding a few exceptions, we do undoubtedly find that the most truly eminent men have had not only their affections, but also their intellect, greatly influenced by women. I will go even farther; and I will venture to say that those who have not undergone that influence betray a something incomplete and mutilated. We detect, even in their genius, a certain frigidity of tone; and we look in vain for that burning fire, that gushing and spontaneous nature with which our ideas of genius are indissolubly associated. Therefore, it is, that those who are most anxious that the boundaries of knowledge should be enlarged, ought to be most eager that the influence of women should be increased, in order that every resource of the human mind may be at once and quickly brought into play.

Henry Thomas Buckle

Our knowledge is composed not of facts, but of the relations which facts and ideas bear to themselves and to each other; and real knowledge consists not in an acquaintance with facts, which only makes a pedant, but in the use of facts, which makes a philosopher.

Henry Thomas Buckle

Of all the various ways which the imagination has distorted truth, there is none which has worked so much harm as an exaggerated respect for past ages. This reverence for antiquity is repugnant to every maxim of reason, and is merely the indulgence of a poetic sentiment in favour of the remote and unknown.

Henry Thomas Buckle