Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic.

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.

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.

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.

It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads.

I believe something very deeply. That Britain's national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union and that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

I'm certainly not as tough as people think. I'm not a fighter and so forth. I'd just as soon go home.

Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images.

Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.

Perl should remain fast and intuitive (to the extent that it is :-)

You have to be talented and you have to be lucky. Record companies are not signing classic rock groups anymore.

In many countries there are particular places to which devils more especially resort. In Prussia there is an infinite number of evil spirits.

If you’re not accountable in life that means ultimately that your life doesn’t count.