I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that the….

Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline..

For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions..

Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm..

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, a….

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble th….

[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death..

That the Jews were unholy was a belief so ingrained by the Church [by the 14th century] that the most devout persons were the harshest in their antip….

The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were suppos….

One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to ….

The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity..

To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next..

I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write..

Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels..

in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight.

Human behavior is timeless..

In the midst of events there is no perspective..

To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup..

If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished..

Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already ….

To rush in upon an event before its significance has had time to separate from the surrounding circumstances may be enterprising, but is it useful? .….