History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.

History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something read more

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else - I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deitits and so forth, as distinguished read more

Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deitits and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

History: An account, mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

History: An account, mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.

The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it

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.

What most impresses us about great jurists is not their tenacious grasps of fine points, honed almost to invisibility; it read more

What most impresses us about great jurists is not their tenacious grasps of fine points, honed almost to invisibility; it is the moment when we are suddently aware of the sweep and direction of the law, and its place in the lives of men.

For historians ought to be precise, truthful, and quite unprejudiced, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should cause read more

For historians ought to be precise, truthful, and quite unprejudiced, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should cause them to swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instruction of the present, the monitor of the future.