In its Greek origins, historia meant inquiry, and from Thucydides onwards, the past has been studied to understand its connections with the present.

Even for the most excitable preacher, there was nothing inherently sinful about a waffle.

Great art has dreadful manners. The greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your reality.

Charlie Hebdo: Satire was the father of true political freedom, born in the 18th century; the scourge of bigots and tyrants. Sing its praises.

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.

Irreverence is the lifeblood of freedom.

What can art really do in the face of atrocity?

The irony about Charles II is not that he came to the throne because England needed a successor to Charles I, but because England needed a successor to Oliver Cromwell.

There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.

Nations don't start out. There is not a particular moment when they unveil the essence of themselves. They are always a work in progress.

But it struck me that the extreme violence and cruelty of the English Civil War had gone understated.

To enjoy the song of love and beauty, just get lost in the wonders of nature.

Shine your light, you will inspire others to radiant their inner light.

Aim at a high mark and you will hit it.

There's always a bittersweet kind of thing, but I feel like everything had to work out the way it is. Everything that had to happen, happened.

Snobbery, being an aspiring failing, is sometimes the prophecy of better things.

Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to liberation.

People work harder when conditions are worse.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

A person in torment is not going to give you anything.

Optimism is an essential ingredient of innovation. How else can the individual welcome change over security, adventure over staying in safe places?