Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

H.A.L. Fisher, fully Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher

English Historian, Educator and Liberal Politician, President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George's coalition government

"Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the historian: that they should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen."

"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."

"Purity of race does not exist. Europe is a continent of energetic mongrels."