“If we trace the history of any nation backwards into the past, we come at last to a period of myths and traditions which eventually fade away into impenetrable darkness.”

“The geologist takes up the history of the earth at the point where the archaeologist leaves it, and carries it further back into remote antiquity.”

“If you are afraid to fail, then you are afraid to succeed. You can never succeed of you have not failed.”

“As far as we can look back into history, the downfall of any nation can be traced from the moment that nation became timid about spending its best blood.”

“The history of interpretation, the skills by which we keep alive in our minds the light and dark of past literature and past humanity ... is to an incalculable extent a history of error.”

“The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.”

“I am convinced that human history has not yet begun, that we find ourselves in the last period of the prehistoric.”