It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths. – Herbert J. Muller, Freedom in the Western World

I can see clearly now… that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate. – Richard M. Nixon

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen. – Robert A. Heinlein

All that the historians give us are little oases in the desert of time, and we linger fondly in these, forgetting the vast tracks between one and another that were trodden by the weary generations of men. – John Alfred Spender, The Comments of Bagshot