Let us dig our furrow in the fields of the commonplace.

History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive. It knows the names of the king's bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly.

Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they cannot think of preserving the memory of the past.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

Let us turn elsewhere, to the wasps and bees, who unquestionably come first in the laying up of a heritage for their offspring.

We have within us, from the start, that which will distinguish us from the vulgar herd.