Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.

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

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

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.

To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.

Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources, the whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.