Samuel E. Morison quotes

If a lecturer, he wishes to be heard; if a writer, to be read. He always hopes for a public beyond that of the long-suffering wife. (Samuel E. Morison)

Historical methodology, as I see it, is a product of common sense applied to circumstances.

Samuel E. Morison

With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction.

Samuel E. Morison

Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history.

Samuel E. Morison

Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis.

Samuel E. Morison

Intellectual honesty is the quality that the public in free countries always has expected of historians; much more than that it does not expect, nor often get.

Samuel E. Morison

So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.

Samuel E. Morison

The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind.

Samuel E. Morison