Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than humans would at first suppose.

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.

It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

My opportunities were still there, nay, they multiplied tenfold; but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail, and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience.