"History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.

History repeats itself and History never repeats itself are about equally true.

"History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.

What is easy to read has been difficult to write. The labour of writing and rewriting, correcting and recorrecting, is the due exacted by every good book from its author, even if he knows from the beginning exactly what he wants to say. A limpid style is invariably the result of hard labour, and the easily flowing connection of sentence with sentence and paragraph with paragraph has always been won by the sweat of the brow.

If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt.

Many who burnt heretics in the ordinary way of their business were otherwise excellent people.

Every true history must force us to remember that the past was once as real as the present and as uncertain as the future.