Charles A. Beard

“One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.”

“A citizen who casts a vote with no thought of the effect that vote may have on the country is a citizen who has betrayed the country.”

“You need education. You need it because you're going to be a human being, not because you're going to be a dentist.”

“All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

“The bee fertilizes the flower it robs.”

“The history of a civilization is a history of the struggle between the ideas of Pen and Sword.”

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

“The historian's first duties are humility and a recognition of the limits of his own knowledge.”

“An economic interpretation of history does not mean that all human actions are determined by economic motives.”

“History is not a science, it is an art, and a man without a philosophy of life is no more capable of writing history than a man deaf from birth is of writing a symphony.”

“Travel is a great source of humility. It takes you out of your own little world and shows you how big the world is.”

“The word 'Americanism' is a word of the street. It is a word of the people.”

“The supreme issue, in my opinion, is the encroachment of the military power upon the civil power.”

“It is a law of history that revolutionists begin with preaching faith and end with compelling it by terror.”