No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it. – Alfred North Whitehead

Then, Sir, you would reduce all history to no better than an almanack, a mere chronological series of remarkable events. – James Boswell, 1775

In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better. – Edward de Bono