The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations. – Ambrose Bierce
Experience – the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. – Ambrose Bierce
Enthusiasm – a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. – Ambrose Bierce
Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke. – Ambrose Bierce
Part of what I loved – and love – about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. Im interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. Im interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books. – Jon Meacham