True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?

True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual; freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more read more

Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual; freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more chances of saving himself by hell than by paradise.

What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.

What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.

The man who sees two or three generations is like someone who sits in a conjurer's booth at a fair read more

The man who sees two or three generations is like someone who sits in a conjurer's booth at a fair and sees the tricks two or three times. They are meant to be seen only once.

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up read more

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.

History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always read more

History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress read more

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

History is a vast early warning system.

History is a vast early warning system.