History is mostly guessing the rest is prejudice.

Taken at face value, the line is a skeptical epigram about the historian’s craft: much of what we call “history” involves inference from incomplete evidence (“guessing”), and what remains is shaped by the interpreter’s prior commitments (“prejudice”). The remark underscores how selection, emphasis, and narrative framing can distort the past, even when facts are available. Read charitably, it is less an attack on history than a warning about epistemic limits—encouraging humility, transparency about uncertainty, and vigilance against bias. It also reflects a modern awareness that historical writing is not a neutral transcript of events but a constructed account constrained by sources and shaped by viewpoint.