“The ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.”

No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.

Honor wears different coats to different eyes.

Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.

Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.

The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.

Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.

The reality of a question is inevitably more complicated than we would like to suppose.

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 They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.

More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life.

The power to command frequently causes failure to think.

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 antipathy, none more so than St. Louis.

bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.

The Church [in the 14th century] gave ceremony and dignity to lives that had little of either. It was the source of beauty and art to which all had some access and which many helped to create.

No nation in the world has so many drastic problems squeezed into so small a space, under such urgent pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel.

The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.

Above all, discard the irrelevant.

The shows need youth. All of our comics are getting too famous to do the show regularly. The people who are regulars five years ago, a lot of them have moved on and can’t do the show anymore. We can’t really get Jim Gaffigan anymore, we can’t get Nick Swardson anymore.

Don’t have children: they deform women’s bodies and turn into an enemy 20 years later.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

Capitalism is going to deal itself out of existence, but before it does that, you’re gonna pay $50 for a latte, because inflation is going impoverish all of us before people get pissed off enough,

I adore my dad. He’s a 78-year-old man and my inspiration.

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.

It’s a little embarrassing that after 45 years of research & study, the best advice I can give people is to be a little kinder to each other.

I’ve always been interested in jobs in the NBA. But I’ve been in this for 20 years and it might be time to do something else.