“History is philosophy, teaching by examples.”

Dionysius Halicarnassus

“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”

Joseph Story

“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” Luke 16:10

“A system founded on the assumption that the only successful lives are the visibly brilliant ones is bound to define the bulk of the population as unsuccessful.”

Charles Murray In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government

“The question of the existence of God is the single most important question we face about the nature of reality…. Neither question [does the concept of a personal God make sense and should we believe in one] is easy to answer. God is a different kind of being from any other that we might speak about.”

John Polkinghorne The Faith of a Physicist.

“the redoubtable Vice-Admiral Gilbert Stevenson, Royal Navy…. was a daunting sight, smothered in gold lace and brass buttons, with a piercing blue eye that could open an oyster at thirty paces…”

James Lamb The Corvette Navy (Stevenson was responsible for his initial training)

“Captain MacWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror. There are on sea and land such men thus fortunate – or thus disdained by destiny or by the sea.”

Joseph Conrad Typhoon

“History is a vast early warning system."

Norman Cousins (ironically a world peace advocate)