History provides no precise guidelines.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of that time.

Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.

We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.

Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of all continental Europe.

It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching.

But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.

We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour.

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgment on the past.

The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake.

I've been polite and I've always shown up. Somebody asked me if I had any advice for young people entering the business. I said: "Yeah show up."

Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do... but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that makes you a winner right there.

I went to the Performing Arts School and studied classical ballet. That attitude is something that's put into your head. You are never thin enough.

Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.

I think that one of the things that influences me most as a composer is to what extent I can deconstruct and reconstruct the material that I'm working with.

Being generous, just helping one's relatives and being blameless in one's actions; this is the best good luck.

[Adolf Hitler] had stubborn ideas about clothes and didn't care how he looked and this drove [Eva Braun] up the wall.

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave.

An idea is something you work on to make it work and a desire is much deeper in a way.

We are regarded as a Third World country with First World living conditions.