All history must be mobilized if one would understand the present.

The mere smell of cooking can evoke a whole civilization.

History may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all.

Leadership of a world-economy is an experience of power which may blind the victor to the march of history.

The companies only developed if the state did not intervene in the French fashion. If on the contrary a certain degree of economic freedom was the rule, capitalism moved in firmly and adapted itself to all administrative quirks and difficulties

The earth is, like our own skin, fated to carry the scars of ancient wounds.

All history must be mobilized if one would understand the present.