I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

Bulls don't read. Bears read financial history. As markets fall to bits the bears dust off the Dutch tulip mania of 1637 the Banque Royale of 1719-20 the railway speculation of the 1840s the great crash of 1929.

The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes on those which were best and greatest it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

The past always seems somehow more golden more serious than the present. We tend to forget the partisanship of yesteryear preferring to re-imagine our history as a sure and steady march toward greatness.

World War II ended the Great Depression with one of the great public-private industrial collaborations in the history of man.

From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner I think if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.

The middle class one of the great achievements in history is becoming more of a relic than a reality.

The long-established and noble rule of Law one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable.

The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.