Jews have a special relationship to books, and the Haggadah has been translated more widely, and reprinted more often, than any other Jewish book. It is not a work of history or philosophy, not a prayer book, users manual, timeline, poem or palimpsest – and yet it is all these things. – Jonathan Safran Foer

The entire history of mankind is, in any case, nothing but a prolonged fight to the death for the conquest of universal prestige and absolute power. – Albert Camus, The Rebel

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

Even the most painstaking history is a bridge across an eternal mystery. – Bruce Catton, Prefaces to History