All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.

If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.

In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.

There is nothing nicer than nodding off while reading. Going fast asleep and then being woken by the crash of the book on the floor, then saying to yourself, well it doesn't matter much. An admirable feeling.

Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.

Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.

A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.