One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.

What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement.

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard

One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.

The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

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

When people don't have an objective, there's much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.