Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.

Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.

More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life.

[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.

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.