In the latter case it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it.

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.

We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.

Technology has to be invented or adopted.

Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened.

Human societies vary in lots of independent factors affecting their openness to innovation.

Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?

The essence of life is the power of love.

Memory is an illusion, nothing more. It is a fire that needs constant tending.

Fortune frowns as often as he smiles, and you don’t want to be in his line of sight when he does.

Men look like pandas when they try and put make-up on.

So long as Donald Trump is powerful and popular, Fox News is going to achieve an advertising bonanza unheard of in the era of modern cable, because people will pay them to talk to the president.

There is one excuse for every mistake a man can make, but only one. When a fellow makes the same mistake twice he's got to throw up both hands and own up to carelessness or cussedness.

There is no running away from a great grief.

He leaned back for a moment to tug her shirt down her arms, with the same wicked, lovley smile that had first stolen her breath years ago.

It's not a filmmaker's job to explain his technique but to tell his story the best way he can.

I listen to archival and historic recordings. I love watching singers. I learned a lot from watching videos.