I feel very strongly that history is about everything. It isn't just about politics or the military or social issues. If art, music, engineering, science, medicine, finance, the world of architecture and technology - if those are left out, then you're not getting a full sense of the human condition. History is human and we human beings are involved in all kinds of things and that's part of our humanity.

You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition.

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams

I often think of that when I hear people say that they haven't time to read.

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.

George P. A. Healy; "I knew no one in France, I was utterly ignorant of the language, I did not know what I should do when once there; but I was not yet one-and-twenty, and I had a great stock of courage, of inexperience—which is sometimes a great help—and a strong desire to be my very best.