“Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.”

“House Speaker Thomas Reed could destroy an argument or expose a fallacy in fewer words than anyone else. His language was vivid and picturesque. He had a way of phrasing things which was peculiarly...”

“Now according to German logic, a declaration of war was found to be unnecessary because of imaginary bombings”

“Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all passions.”

“They resented the patronage they depended upon.”

“Nineteenth-century liberalism had assumed that man was a rational being who operated naturally according to his own best interests, so that in the end, what was reasonable would prevail. On this pr...”

“Years later, as a professor, Martin would try to find the words to articulate the power of togetherness in a world where togetherness had been corrupted -- and to explore the effect of the music, t...”

“And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars--all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak natio...”

“Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and many more great minds laid the groundwork for the development of modern science. Over the foundation of philosophy, history witnessed the daring ventures of human exc...”

“War without end. Well, what was history without that? And how would having the stars change anything?”

“You are not responsible for the past, but insofar as you do nothing, you are complicit in the present created by it.”

“If there were ever such a thing as a unique opinion, history would probably be less inclined to repeat itself.”

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

“Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.”

“Immer wieder behauptete Unwahrheiten werden nicht zu Wahrheiten, sondern, was schlimmer ist, zu Gewohnheiten.”