The very names we use to describe ancient ideas or vanished forms of social organization would be quite meaningless if we had not known living men.

In contrast, historical time is a concrete and living reality with an irreversible onward rush. It is the very plasma in which events are immersed, and the field within which they become intelligible.

The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.

Let us guard against stripping our science of its share of poetry.

Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge.