Education in the United States is a passion and a paradox. Millions want it, and commend it, and are busy about it. At the same time they degrade it by trying to get it free of charge and free of work.

The reason why research is like sculpting from memory is that in neither is there a concrete visible subject to copy directly. The subject - as sculptors themselves are fond of saying - is hidden in the block of material.

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.

History, like a vast river, propels logs, vegetation, rafts, and debris; it is full of live and dead things, some destined for resurrection; it mingles many waters and holds in solution invisible substances stolen from distant soils.

I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.

To delve into history entails, besides the grievance of hard work, the danger that in the depths one may lose one’s scapegoats.