"Finally, the historian should have frequent recourse to the book of life. The richer his personal experience, the wider his human contacts, the more likely he is to effect a living contact with his audience. In writing, similes drawn from the current experience of this mechanical age, rather than those rifled from the literary baggage of past eras, are the ones that will go home to his reader. Service on a jury or a local committee may be a revelation as to the political thoughts and habits of mankind. A month’s labor in a modern factory would help any young academician to clarify his ideas of labor and capital. A camping trip in the woods will tell him things about Western pioneering that he can never learn in books. The great historians, with few exceptions, are those who have not merely studied, but lived; and whose studies have ranged over a much wider field than the period or subject of which they write."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Pulitzer Prize winnersNon-fiction authors from the United StatesUnited States Navy peopleHarvard University alumniHarvard University faculty
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Eliot_Morison
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Samuel Eliot Morison
Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942), a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1959). In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of United States na
43 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Samuel Eliot Morison →
Related Quotes
"After the Chesapeake incident, Jefferson lost the only chance of declaring war against Great Britain, when such a war…"
"A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race [the Yankees]; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and…"
"On her first voyage, the Columbia had solved the riddle of the China trade. On her second, empire followed in the wake."
"Challenging is the note of freedom that still rings out from the Harvard Yard, into a world by no means so eager to h…"
"Exploring American History has been a very absorbing and exciting business now for three quarters of a century. Thous…"
"Even the earliest colonial historians, like William Bradford and Robert Beverley, knew that; they put conscious art i…"
"And in this flight of history from literature the public was left behind. American history became a bore to the reade…"
"Theodore Roosevelt in his presidential address before the American Historical Association in 1912 made a ringing plea…"
"And although American historians cannot hope, as Theodore Roosevelt did, to “watch the nearing chariots of the champi…"
"He Columbus] enjoyed long stretches of pure delight such as only a seaman may know, and moments of high, proud exulta…"