There is no such thing as patriotic art and patriotic science. Both art and science belong, like all things great and good, to the whole world, and can be furthered only by a free and general interchange of ideas among contemporaries, with continual reference to the heritage of the past as it is known to us.
Poetical talent is given to peasant as well as to knight; all that is required is that each shall grasp his position and treat it worthily.
An historic sense means a sense so cultured that, in valuing the deserts and merits of its own time, it takes account also of the past.
The best that history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses.
The historian's duty is twofold: first towards himself, then towards his readers. As regards himself, he must carefully examine into the things that could have happened; and, for the reader's sake, he must determine what actually did happen. His action towards himself is a matter between himself and his colleagues; but the public must not see into the secret that there is little in history which can be said to be positively determined.