Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters — because girls can read as well as boys — reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read? – Mervyn Griffith-Jones
Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason, Im optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patterns of human history. – Jared Diamond
After all, the past is our only real guide to the future, and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate. – Michael Mandelbaum
