“Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.”

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

To explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.

The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution.

For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.

Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.

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 supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.

And thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day, we have many canals, few reservoirs.

I cannot live in mediocrity, content with merely knowing that there is more of God to experience and explore -and then do nothing about it.

I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.

Donald Trump in a church getting interrupted by the pastor because he started attacking Hillary Clinton.

God Almighty never intended that the devil should triumph over the Church. He never intended that the saloons should walk rough-shod over Christianity.

Kinsey thought that Freud in his own way was as dangerous as the Catholic Church.

We missed a lot of church, so the music is our confessional.

There’s nothing like the local church when it’s working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. No other organization on earth is like the church. Nothing even comes close.