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Herbert Butterfield

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Also known as Sir Herbert Butterfield

British historian (1900 – 1979)

Person · Open Library

Works
36

Top works

  • Christianity and History
  • HIstorical Development of the Principle of Toleration in British Life
  • Routledge Revivals : the Universities and Education Today
  • Origins of Modern Science, Revised Edition
  • George 111 and the historians

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Country
US
Active from
1917-01-14
Active to
1988-03-18

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
1
Total plays
1

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Herbert+Butterfield">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Herbert Butterfield

Quotes

  • About the scientific revolution: it “outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes”.
  • But 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.
  • Considering the part played by the sciences in the story of our Western civilization, it is hardly possible to doubt the importance which the history of science will sooner or later acquire both in its own right and as the bridge which has been so long needed in between the Arts and the Sciences.
  • The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”
  • The study of the past with one eye upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history. It is the essence of what we mean by the word "unhistorical".”
  • If history can do anything it is to remind us of those complications that undermine our certainties, and to show us that all our judgements are merely relative to time and circumstance. ...we can never assert that history has proved any man right in the long run.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA