Ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.

The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.

Perhaps of all the creations of man language is the most astonishing.

It is probably always disastrous not to be a poet.

Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which is independent of any temporal process──which is eternal, and must be felt for its own sake.

There is something dark and wintry about the atmosphere of the later Middle Ages.

Perhaps the best test of a man's intelligence is his capacity for making a summary.

Englishmen have always loved Moliere.

Discretion is not the better part of biography.

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.

We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.

Vegan is just pure love. Love for animals, love for the planet, and love for yourself.

You don't have that much choice in your life, which is one of the big lessons I've learned. I was going to be a designer whether I wanted to be a designer or not. So there I was.

Very, very few entrepreneurs who accept a 51 percent partner in a new venture will get rich if they are also expected to run it. Control is mandatory.

The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.

Now our biggest environmental problems come from our own actions, our own choices, rather than pollution produced by big business.

I would say the more the better when it is comes to development and marketing. It's actually fun. For some it can be a frustrating thing.

Whatever I have given, I have gained.

Katherine Sedley was the only daughter and heiress to the libertine poet Sir Charles Sedley, and grew into a thoroughly scandalous lady in her own right.

It's like an Alcatraz around my neck