Geoffrey Elton Quotes

Germany, Politician
August 17, 1921 – December, 4, 1994.

Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton FBA was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988.

Also known as Historian

The future is dark, the present burdensome. Only the past, dead and buried, bears contemplation.

Geoffrey Elton
- Future
- Present
- Buried
When I meet a historian who cannot think that there have been great men, great men moreover in politics, I feel myself in the presence of a bad historian, and there are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchill -- whether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains quite simply, a great man.

Geoffrey Elton
- Thinking
- Opinion
- Judging

Since historical reconstruction is a rational process, only justified and indeed possible if it involves the human reason, what we call history is the mess we call life reduced to some order. pattern and possibly purpose.

Geoffrey Elton
History will help to remedy intellectual faults such as excessive concentration on one line of thought, absence of understanding for other points of view, belief in simple solutions, lack of balance of mind, absence of an imaginative understanding.

Geoffrey Elton
If historians are not skeptical, they are nothing.

Geoffrey Elton
- Historians
- Skeptical