“Above all, discard the irrelevant.”

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.

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.

One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.

Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.

The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.

Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.

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

The Taliban had become deeply unpopular and were actually discarded by the Pashtun population almost as quickly as they were in the north. I don’t see the Taliban coming back in any way.

The disenfranchised offspring, along with an entire ageless class of human discards, know only that they are doomed.

The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe. Discard the make-believe and take the truth.

All you need to do is take the time to sit down and examine each item you own, decide whether you want to keep or discard it, and then choose where to put what you keep.

Discard first, store later.

Discard everything and keep of your simple.  

Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with somebody else.