It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals, and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us. We can recover self-confidence by snubbing the dead. – E.M. Forster, Abinger Harvest

What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them. – Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

The writing of histories – as Goethe once noted – is one way of getting rid of the weight of the past…. The writing of history liberates us from history. – Benedetto Croce, History as the Story of Liberty