Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.

We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.

Technology has to be invented or adopted.

Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened.

Human societies vary in lots of independent factors affecting their openness to innovation.

Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.

Don't cry about your struggles, they are the roadways to your future blessings.

Her melodious laughter sounded like the distant tinkling of soft bells and he stored the sound in her temple- his heart.

Whenever regulation increases, personal freedom decreases.

By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds.

Sleeplessness is a desert without vegetation or inhabitants.

The only limitations that I can have are the ones that I set on myself.

Exactly how intricate a sport is jogging? You were two years old. You ran after the cat. You pretty much had it mastered

We're living through the twilight of American economic dominance.

I believe the military should be wary of diplomacy until war is declared; then the State Department should keep its nose out and let the military do whatever is necessary to win.

He who wins through fraud is not a winner.