"The absence of romance
from my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest;
but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an
exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation
of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble
if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have
written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause
of the moment, but as a possession for all time"
Thucydides,
The Peloponnesian War [Book I, 22].
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"...it
is one thing to compose as a poet, and another to record
as an historian: the poet may relate or rehearse things,
not as they were, but as they ought to have been; whereas
the historian must transmit them, not as they ought to
have been, but exactly as they were; without adding to, or
subtracting the least title from the truth."
Cervantes
Don Quixote [Volume II, Book 1]
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