A mind devoid of prepossessions is likely to be devoid of all mental furniture. And the historian who thinks that he can clean his mind as he would a slate with a wet sponge, is ignorant of the simplest facts of mental life. – Allen Johnson, The Historian and Historical Evidence

I think people in general have neglected to learn about history. – Maynard James Keenan

For what is history, but… huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species. – Washington Irving, History of New York

Life isnt meant to be easy. Its hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess Im something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another. – Richard M. Nixon