“This implies, as all concentration must, some renunciation, some self-discipline, some restraint of wandering desires; but it brings its reward at once.”

On the cost and payoff of disciplined study · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Discipline
• Effort

“When we are sober we resolve to know one thing, if we can.”

On the need to narrow ambition to a single field of study · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Ambition
• Choice

“When we begin reading we are insatiably curious; all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them seem to lie open before us in our books.”

Recalling the boundless appetite of a young student · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Books
• Curiosity

“Only those endure in which the matter is so solid and the form so perfect, and both so harmoniously united, that they still satisfy and charm, and seem to triumph over time.”

On what allows a work of history to last · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Style
• Time

“How transitory and fragile is the reputation of histories that were welcomed as perfect in their day.”

On the short life of most historical scholarship · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Fame
• Time

“To me truth seems to lie between these two extremes. History is neither, but it partakes of the nature of both.”

Weighing whether history is a science or an art · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Truth
• Understanding

“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

“One half of his business is the discovery of the truth, and the other half its representation.”

Defining the twin scientific and artistic tasks of the historian · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Craft
• Truth

“Judgement is now more needed than memory, constructive skill than fluency.”

Distinguishing the demands of real historical work from examination training · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Judgement
• Skill

“He has been taught results instead of methods; not how to find out, but what to remember.”

Criticising an education that prizes memorised facts over method · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Education
• Learning

“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

“The historian should use ‘scientific’ methods to arrive at a ‘faithful representation of the life of the time.”

Expressing his belief that historical scholarship should reconstruct the past faithfully through disciplined research · Historical writing and teaching

• Evidence
• History
• Truth

“My mind was made up never to leave my parents. I felt that their absorbing love could never be repaid by the longest life-service.”

Explaining her decision to prioritise filial duty over marriage in her youth · Autobiography, Letters of Life

• Devotion
• Duty
• Family

“If there is any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse has surely officiated there as a woman of all work, and an aproned waiter.”

A wry, self-deprecating summary of a long working life spent turning domestic duty into verse · Autobiography, Letters of Life

• Craft
• Humility
• Work

“All the degrees in Europe could not counterbalance that in my eyes.”

Emphasising the uniquely personal value she placed on the honour from Edinburgh University · Letter, 1936

• Honour
• Recognition
• Scotland

“I cannot say how kind I think it of you to write. You tell me that there are countrymen of mine who will regard the honour done by Edinburgh University as a personal honour to themselves.”

Responding warmly to the honour of her Edinburgh University degree and the affection of fellow Scots · Letter, 1936

• Gratitude
• Recognition
• Scotland

“It will never leave me while I live. He is so near me often …”

Expressing the enduring presence of her son Harry three years after his death · Letter to Mrs Kappey, August 1919

• Family
• Grief
• Memory

“it was his happiness that he neither heard nor read any thing vulgar, weak or raw, till his mind was fixed to notions exact as reason and as high as fancy”

His own account of the discipline behind his learning · Reported as his usual saying, in Lloyd's Memoirs

• Learning
• Standards

“For this assertion was Dr Featley brought upon his knees before Wm. Laud A-Bp of Canterbury.”

A wry marginal jab at a fellow divine, preserved by Aubrey · Marginal note in his copy of Featley's Handmayd to Devotion, reported by Aubrey

• Humour
• Religion

“This is a domain that mocks at legislative restrictions, caste, exclusionism and what not.”

Celebrating literature as a sphere capable of escaping social and political barriers. · Essay, The Negro as a Writer

• Equality
• Freedom
• Literature

“The English speaking people of both continents will read it if it is written by a master. It will make no difference.”

Expressing confidence that genuinely accomplished writing can transcend racial and national boundaries. · Essay, The Negro as a Writer

• Achievement
• Readers
• Writing

“The epic of his race awaits a writer. The drama of an unwritten history covering about four centuries will welcome the facile pen of some gifted son or daughter.”

Looking forward to writers who would give artistic form to an incompletely recorded history. · Essay, The Negro as a Writer

• Future
• History
• Writing

“The Negro writer has it largely in his power to demonstrate the higher possibilities and capabilities of his race.”

Seeing literature as a means of demonstrating intellectual and creative achievement. · Essay, The Negro as a Writer

• Achievement
• Possibility
• Writing

“The Negro writer is prolific in detail. Situation follows situation in rapid success, demanding close attention to keep clear of the meshes of involvement.”

Observing the richness and density of African American literary expression. · Essay, The Negro as a Writer

• Expression
• Style
• Writing