Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only 'normal' people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.

I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, 'What happened n…

Conformity may give you a quiet life; it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If th…

The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.