History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender

Greatness is so often a courteous synonym for great success.

Any stigma, as the old saying is, will serve to beat a dogma.

Success is little more than a chemical compound of man with moment.

The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.

People who jump to conclusions rarely alight on them.

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.

Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.

The Crimean War is one of the bad jokes of history.

The preface is the most important part of a book. Even reviewers read a preface.

But I don't shut up and I don't die.I liveand fight, maddeningthose who rule my country.For if I liveI fight, and if I fightI contribute to the dawn.

Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.

We're the tortoise that has outrun the hare because it chose the easy predictions.

The euro pleases dispirited people for whom European history is not Chartres and Shakespeare but the Holocaust and the Somme. The euro expresses cultural despair.

I preach freedom of the mind through freedom of the body; women, for example - out of the prison of corsets.

I have always believed that life is too short for rows and disagreements. Even if I think I'm right, I would prefer to apologize and remain friends rather than win and be an enemy.

Every child has the spirit of creation. The rubbish of life often exterminates the spirit through plague and a souls own wretchedness.

Whoever is loved is beautiful, but the opposite is not true, that whoever is beautiful is loved.

We are depleting this immense diversity and abundance of life, and it matters tremendously for the future of the planet.

The end is simply the beginning of an even longer story.