History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes

History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes

The future has a way of arriving unannounced.

The future has a way of arriving unannounced.

The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing.

The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing.

Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been different.

Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been different.

A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a read more

A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician. A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is "sensitive;" or because he is cruel. Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man's life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture -- in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

I once asked my history teacher how we were expected to learn anything useful from his subject, when it seemed read more

I once asked my history teacher how we were expected to learn anything useful from his subject, when it seemed to me to be nothing but a monotonous and sordid succession of robber baron scumbags devoid of any admirable human qualities. I failed history.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

All history, of course, is the history of wars.

All history, of course, is the history of wars.