“He feels that he moves in a little circle of light, seeing as far as his little candle throws its beams; and beyond that comes darkness.”

On the historian's awareness of the limits of his own knowledge · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Humility
• Knowledge

“To understand one thing it is necessary to know so many others that a man is always learning something new.”

Arguing that specialisation need not narrow the mind · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Curiosity
• Learning

“The wisest historians I have known recognized most fully how little they could know about the times they knew best.”

Praising intellectual humility as a mark of the best scholars · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Humility
• Wisdom