Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.

The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.

Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.

Books are the carriers of civilization... Books are humanity in print.

Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.

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

Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.