The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians...

To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced.

The writer’s object is – or should be – to hold the reader’s attention.

When people don’t have an objective, there’s much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.