The only business of the historian is to relate things exactly as they are: this he can never do as long as he is afraid

I'll be reading books until the next challenger arrives. That will calm my nerves, so that I may deal with all situations without panicking.

Poverty persuades a man to do and suffer everything that he may escape from it.

Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much.

Be grateful. By slaying you now, I spare you an eternity of torment.

Avarice is a cursed vice: offer a man enough gold, and he will part with his own small hoard of food, however great his hunger.

The historian should be fearless and incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth; one who, as the poets says, calls a fig a fig and a spade a spade. He should yield to neither hatred nor affection, not should be unsparing and unpitying. He should be neither shy nor deprecating, but an impartial judge, giving each side all it deserves but no more. He should know in his writing no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king. He should never consider what this or that man will think, but should state the facts as they really occurred.