Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have a very deep concern about President Obama putting in another 21,000 troops into Afghanistan with the promise of more to come.
In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.
Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.
Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.
There has always been, and there is now, a profound conflict of interest between the people and the government of the United States.
In its revolt against congestion and sordor, a space-hungry generation has, I fear, developed eyes that are bigger than its stomach.
Acts of violence against one's own countrymen that are legitimated by religion are not new. Nor have such acts been unique to Islam.
Madame Schmid belonged to that large class of persons who believe that a man who engages in any form of art is necessarily a loafer.
He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.
When they remain in garrison, soldiers are maintained with fear and punishment; when they are then led to war, with hope and reward.
Just as science is more immediate and exciting than the history of science, so is insight more compelling than a history of insight.
... what's in a person's heart and soul will not likely be changed by the ability to command a helicopter to land on the South Lawn.
In 1890, nearly everyone died on the job, and if they lived long enough not to die on the job, the average age of retirement was 85.
There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.
The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food.
Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: "Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I."
Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.
I find it more than a little disingenuous to act as if keeping slaves was something that set Thomas Jefferson apart from all mankind.
The greatest heroes of the Normandy battlefield were the unarmed medics, whom snipers often shot at despite their Red Cross armbands.
Every country has its own perspective on the Second World War. This is not surprising when experiences and memories are so different.
Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.
Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies.
People tease me about knowing somehow that Obama would put Clinton into the cabinet, and everybody would talk about a team of rivals.
Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.
[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
Utopianism is probably a necessary social device for generating the superhuman efforts without which no major revolution is achieved.
The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue on this continent was: Shall France remain here, or shall she not?
It's possible to dazzle a crowd if you really work at it. But that is no qualification for leadership. Hitler was a master of crowds.
Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.
Whenever a man reaches the top of the political ladder, his enemies unite to pull him down. His friends become critical and exacting.
When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.
I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.
Finally, for all of us but a lucky few, the dream of playing big-time baseball is relinquished so we can get on with grown-up things.
Women do not always have to write about women, or gay men about gay men. Indeed, something good and new might happen if they did not.
My first restoration was on 'Napoleon,' trying to put the French version in with the English version, and it was most unsatisfactory.
One can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna
A certain peace is better and safer than a victory in prospect; the former is at your own disposal, the latter depends upon the gods.
I guess you'd say, including the - what I just spoke about, the learning that liberalism isn't quite as liberal as it pretends to be.
The whole politically correct movement, if it - if that's what it is, was spawned by liberals. So I try to avoid categorizing myself.
A prince ought to have two fears, one from within, on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of external powers.
If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.
I worked for a brief spell as a journalist, but soon I discovered that I didn't want to be a journalist - I wanted to be a historian.
My autobiography is a digressive illustration and exemplification of what race has meant in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Values, both those that we approve and those that we don't, have roots as deep as creosote rings, and live as long and grow as slowly
It is the abiding concern of thinking people to preserve what keeps men human-to save our contact with nature of which we are a part.
The punishment of shaving a woman's head had biblical origins. In Europe, the practice dated back to the Dark Ages with the Visigoths.
The trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance, except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.
The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the effort must result in making a man think and do for himself.
Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.