He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be – a student of history and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones. – A. J. P. Taylor

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? – Washington Irving, The Sketch Book: Westminster Abbey