To the scientist, nature is always and merely a 'phenomenon,' not in the sense of being defective in reality, but in the sense of being a spectacle presented to his intelligent observation; whereas the events of history are never mere phenomena, never mere spectacles for contemplation, but things which the historian looks, not at, but through, to discern the thought within them.

Perfect Freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work, and in that work does what he wants to do.

All history is the history of thought.

The history of thought, and therefore all history, is the re-enactment of past thought in the historian's own mind.

History is for human self-knowledge. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a person; secondly, knowing what it is to be the kind of person you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the person you are and nobody else is. Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.

What a man is ashamed of is always at bottom himself; and he is ashamed of himself at bottom always for being afraid.

The value of history. ..is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.