Man has long found solace in good talk to offset bad conduct.
To become historically-minded is to be grown-up.
Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.
Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best.
In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth.
We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem, which is threatened.