Completeness is rare in history.

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.

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

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.

For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.

Books are humanity in print.