“Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.”

Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.

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

When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.

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 the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

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

Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.

To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.

To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.

Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

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 act upon what they suspected to be true.

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced

Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.

Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.

Anxious people are resorceful, they need to know how to keep the sea of panic at bay so they do not drown.

We seek guides and guideposts to ease the anxiety of the journey. But we also need to depend on our own insights and imagination to cultivate, from our own experience, a way to move forward.

In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.

Taking photographs can assuage the itch for possession sparked by the beauty of a place; our anxiety over losing a precious scene can decline with every click of the shutter.

Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.

The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness”.

When I had independence, it was a constant battle within me to figure out when am I on my own.

When I set out to find my father, I was not being brave. I was acting out of fear or losing the only parent I ever had. They may want you to believe I was simple being brave, but anxiety makes more heroes than history would care to repeat.