Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century Quotes
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
A reformer exhorted children that they would succeed where he and his colleagues had failed with the charge: "Live for that better day.
Between the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls.