Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.

More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life.

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.

What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement.

Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.

One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.

Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.

The Fear of failure is the greatest fear of man. Even the fear of death is fear of failing to continue life,

With fiction, I tend to get to my desk and start writing. Poetry I write in my head, often while walking, so that my poems have an organic quality, hopefully.

When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries.

And as every spy knows, common enemies are how allies always begin.

I'm not saving anybody's life, I'm not a teacher, I'm not working for UNICEF. I don't think I'm some big deal.

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

the less one does, as I long ago observed, the less one can find time to do.

The whole damned country was depending on me.

All you can do is make your decisions based on what you know now

I learned that every mortal will taste death. But only some will taste life.