What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.

This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer.

The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.

Modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.

...except life's usual answer to the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: live in the needs of the day, that is find forgetfulness.

Every monarch in the world, except the Emperor of China, wears a military uniform, and bestows the greatest rewards on the man who kills the greatest number of his fellow-creatures.

There are two sides to the life of every man: there is his individual existence which is free in proportion as his interests are abstract; and his elemental life as a unit in the human swarm, in which he must inevitably obey the laws laid down for him.

Man lives consciously for himself but unconsciously he serves as an instrument for the accomplishment of historical and social ends.

Freedom is the content. Inevitability is the form.