Anecdotes have enjoyed low status in scholarly writings, since, in contrast to historical accounts or reports, they rest on dubious factual evidence. The shady reputation of anecdote may derive from the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius who called his posthumously published scandalous account of the Emperor Justinian Anecdota or Historia Arcana (Anecdotal or Secret History). In everyday life, too, anecdotes may get negative reactions. For example, we may hear someone say that a certain account should be distrusted since “it rests merely on anecdotal evidence.” Evidence that is “only anecdotal” is not permitted to furnish a proper argument. Of course, it is entirely fallacious to generalize from a case on the basis of mere anecdotal evidence. But empirical generalization is not the aim of phenomenological research. The point that the critics of anecdotes miss is that the anecdote is to be valued for other than factual-empirical or factual-historical reasons. An historical account describes a thing that has happened in the past, but an anecdote is rather like a poetic narrative which describes a universal truth. Verhoeven (1987) argued that what Aristotle says about the poetic epic of his time applies to the anecdotal narrative of our time.