7 Quotes by Teodoro A. Agoncillo

There is a great similarity between legal evidence and historical evidence. The only difference lies in the fact that in legal evidence it is the judge who determines whether the account of a witness is acceptable or not... The historian is prosecuting attorney and defense attorney and the judge all rolled into one, and he is the narrator and the interpreter.

History deals with the past, not with the future. We use history to avoid the mistakes of the past, not to recreate the very same events. You cannot.

History is re-creation while literature is creation.

You’re not sure that you will have all the documents. That is why the conclusions in history is not final.

Who is this historian who can say that he’s telling the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth. Nobody, because you’re human.

The people who criticize me are ignorant of what history is, because the very fact that the student of history chooses what to include and what not to include in his work, is proof that history is never objective.

We always depend on the government to do this and that for us. No government can do that. Always it is with the cooperation of the people. The people must cooperate with the government. The government will think of ways to improve the welfare of the people, but the people will have to help themselves.