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.
History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
History is the great propagator of doubt.
There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
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.