The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.

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

The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.

I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have.

I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.

Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.