So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him. - Will Durant

It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations; because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be understood without it.

Normally and generally men are judged by their ability to produce — except in war, when they are ranked according to their ability to destroy.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.