Donald Kagan Quotes

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?

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