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H. A. L. Fisher Quotes (1865-1940)
Politician
About H. A. L. Fisher
Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher, OM (21 March 1865 – 18 April 1940) was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful H. A. L. Fisher quotes.
“I can see … only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.”
“All political decisions are taken under great pressure, and if a treaty serves its turn for ten or twenty years, the wisdom of its framers is sufficiently confirmed.”
“It is easier for eight or nine elderly men to feel their way towards unanimity if they are not compelled to conduct their converging maneuvers under the microscopes and telescopes of the press, but are permitted to shuffle about a little in slippers.”
What H. A. L. Fisher Said About Others
Discover personal opinions H. A. L. Fisher shared regarding contemporaries.
H. A. L. Fisher on Bonar Law 2 quotes
“Mr. Bonar Law once told me that he had read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" three times before he was 21. He added in his simple, whimsical way, "I think it must have been from ambition. I liked to read of common soldiers becoming emperors." On another occasion he informed me that only two political causes had ever excited him in any powerful interest, Ulster and Protection.”
H. A. L. Fisher on John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
“[Acton knew] at least four foreign languages, and probably read and annotated more printed matter than anyone who has ever lived. And he was cosmopolitan in the intimate as well as in the superficial sense, for as a liberal Roman Catholic he was equally versed in the literature of authority and revolt, and knew, as no other Englishman, the great central tradition of post-Tridentine theology.”
About H. A. L. Fisher
Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher, OM (21 March 1865 – 18 April 1940) was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician.