Peter Gay

“Freud is the J.S. Bach of psychology.”

“History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.”

“Curiosity is the cardinal passion of the historian.”

“The past is not a foreign country; it is an undiscovered country.”

“The historian's first loyalty is to the evidence.”

“The true historian is a myth-buster.”

“I am a believing unbeliever. I see the consolations of religion, and I envy those who have it.”

“Sentimentality is a form of emotional lying.”

“To be a good historian, you must be a good story-teller.”

“Tolerance is the centerpiece of the Enlightenment.”

“The historian's task is to make the past intelligible.”

“Bourgeois culture, at its best, is a culture of privacy, of introspection, of self-cultivation.”