Quotes by Marc Bloch

About Marc Bloch:

Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch is best known for his pioneering studies French Rural History and Feudal Society and his posthumously-published unfinished meditation on the writing of history, The Historian's Craft. A French soldier in both World Wars, he was captured and shot by the Gestapo during the German occupation of France for his work in the French Resistance.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge.

Marc Bloch

The very names we use to describe ancient ideas or vanished forms of social organization would be quite meaningless if we had not known living men.

Marc Bloch

The ABC of our profession is to avoid these large abstract terms in order to try to discover behind them the only concrete realities, which are human beings.

Marc Bloch

The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines.

Marc Bloch

History is, in its essentials, the science of change. It knows and it teaches that it is impossible to find two events that are ever exactly alike, because the conditions from which they spring are never identical.

Marc Bloch

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

Marc Bloch

The good historian is like the giant of the fairy tale. He knows that wherever he catches the scent of human flesh, there his quarry lies.

Marc Bloch

Author Bio

  • NameMarc Bloch
  • DescriptionFrench historian, medievalist, and historiographer
  • AliasesMarc Léopold Benjamin Bloch
  • BornJuly 6, 1886
  • DiedJune 16, 1944
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionHistoriographer; Historian Of The Middle Ages; Historian; Author
  • AwardsKnight Of The Legion Of Honour; Croix De Guerre 1914–1918; Mort Pour La France