The entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor.

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.

The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.

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.

History calls those men the greatest who have ennobled themselves by working for the common good; experience acclaims as happiest the man who has made the greatest number of people happy.