Golo Mann

“Democracy is the only form of government that has to be learned.”

“We are not the masters of our history, but its victims.”

“One must have the courage of one's pessimism.”

“The Germans tend to justify everything they do with a worldview.”

“History is a conversation between the present and the past.”

“There are no harmless thoughts. Every thought can become an act.”

“He who has no questions has no answers.”

“The telling of history is a perpetual duel between the narrator and the event.”

“What we need is not more knowledge, but more judgment.”

“The historian's task is to narrate what happened in such a way that it becomes understandable.”

“Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never permit himself.”

“The Germans? A people who make governing difficult for themselves and for others too.”