Marc Bloch Quotes

Misunderstanding of the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past. But a man may wear himself out just as fruitlessly in seeking to understand the past, if he is totally ignorant of the present...This faculty of understanding the living is, in very truth, the master quality of the historian.

The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavour toward better understanding.

For in the last analysis it is human consciousness which is the subject matter of history.

Successive technological revolutions have immeasurably widened the psychological gap between generations. With some reason, perhaps, the man of the age of electricity and of the airplane feels himself removed from his masters.

There is no true understanding without a certain range of comparison.

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

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.