“The history of the last half century is accordingly in large measure a history of financial titans, whose methods were not scrutinized with too much care and who were honored in proportion as they produced the results, irrespective of the means they used.”

“Titanic started a voyage through history when it sailed away. One century later, there is still no port at sight.”

“Everything, in retrospect, is obvious. But if everything were obvious, authors of histories of financial folly would be rich . . .”

“Deplorable practices adopted during the last century were repeatedly declared necessary if regrettable in order to win the war. Oddly enough, we've yet to win. You'd think somebody would have asked before this why the regrettable but necessary measures haven't actually produced the promised results.”

“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.”

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”