The future is dark, the present burdensome. Only the past, dead and buried, bears contemplation. – G.R. Elton, The Practice of History

God cannot alter the past, though historians can. – Samuel Butler, “Prose Observations”

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it. – Jose Ortega y Gasset

History only exists, in the final analysis, for God. – Albert Camus, The Rebel