These hints, dropped as it were from sleep and night, let us use in broad day. The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the Muse of history will utter oracles, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, - 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

Heroism feels and never reasons and therefore is always right.

The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conver…

Very few people, including authors willing to commit to paper, ever really read primary sources-certainly not in necessary depth and comtemplation, and often n…

When puzzled, it never hurts to read the primary documents-a rather simple and self-evident principle that has, nonetheless, completely disappeared from large …