[History is] the very servant of the servants of God, the drudge of all the drudges.
Herbert ButterfieldIf history can do anything it is to remind us that all our judgments are merely relative to time and circumstance.
Herbert ButterfieldIt is not a sin to introduce a personal bias that can be recognized and discounted. The sin in historical composition is the organization of the story in such a way that bias cannot be recognized.
Herbert ButterfieldBut the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness - each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked - each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.
Herbert ButterfieldPerhaps history is a thing that would stop happening if God held His breath, or could be imagined as turning away to think of something else.
Herbert ButterfieldIt has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of bygone generations he can lift up the fallen and beat down the proud, and by his exposures and his verdicts, his satire and his moral indignation, can punish unrighteousness, avenge the injured or reward the innocent.
Herbert Butterfield