Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.

The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man.

As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I'm the least authoritarian professor you'll ever meet.

The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos.

To make a living space, there first had to be a killing space.

All empires have depended on local legitimacy and local collaboration; they are not based primarily on coercion. An imperial rule that relies wholly on coercion can't endure. It's too expensive.

The British press has an insatiable appetite for making public things that should be private. It's a prurience that I've never understood.

I can't imagine having a conversation about 'Celebrity Big Brother' in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Armenian genocide showed what could happen when empires were beaten into nations.

If young men have jobs - or the prospects of jobs - they are less likely to take up arms, they are less likely to join the resistance.

Each one you take is a commitment. If you break that commitment, the gods of alcohol will punish you with a hangover so bad you'll think Satan himself took a dump on you. -Milo

Just listen to what Mr. [Donald] Trump has to say and make your own judgment with respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things like our nuclear triad.

Hearing God is about the very specific issue of what it means to live with guidance in our life.

The myth of the strong black woman is the other side of the coin of the myth of the beautiful dumb blonde.

By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.

My biggest regret is probably that it took me so long to find out what I want to do.

For pines are gossip pines the wide world through And full of runic tales to sigh or sing.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.

Atrocity is truly emperor; All things that thrive are slaves of cruel Creation.

I do understand the perspective of die-hard fans who complain that we don't play the same as the record, but at the same time I think fans are getting an amazing deal.