“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.”

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.

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.

Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?

But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.

Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational.

How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?

But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?

But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?

Discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking.

I knew all the time I was going to get through the war. It was completely irrational, a silly idea, but I was not going to lie down and get myself killed. I was going to get out of it.