"The medieval university looked backwards it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge. The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge."

"The scientific imagination always restrains itself within the limits of probability."

"The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins."

"No slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed-man."

"Accuracy is paramount in every detail of a work of history. Here's my rule: Ask yourself, 'Did this thing happen?' If the answer is yes, then it's historical. Then ask, 'Did this thing happen precisely this way?' If the answer is yes, then it's history if the answer is no, not precisely this way, then it's historical drama."

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

"When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas."

"Humility is not weakness in leadership; it is the cornerstone of unassailable respect. A lesson woven into the fabric of human history — an essential principle for the reflective life."