Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or that our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than we suspect of what we think. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. – William H. Mauldin

History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads. People get the history they deserve. – Charles de Gaulle