War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

Completeness is rare in history.

The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.

Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.