You have to liberate yourself first from the prejudices of the world in which you live.

From the time I was a little boy I found myself reading history when I had a choice. I read a lot of things, but history had a special appeal for me.

History had its own way of explaining things. The way historians explain things is by telling a story.

Without history we are the prisoners of the accident of where and when we were born.

We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics.

War has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states

I can see that you [Bruce Cole] are a true historian because you really always ought to ask that question about anybody at a different place or a different time: What's the same and what's different?

The life of the law has not been logic

Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.

All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout. A mind like compost.

Of course one should not drink much, but often.

I think that no one roiled American politics and sort of scrambled the left/right dynamic more 2015 year than Pope Francis.

Success and the art of making music are two different things for me.

I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness.

If the future and the past really exist, where are they?

Small teams move faster than big teams.

Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see.