Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after is has happened; but only the wise man knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.
History's villains are more easily recognized in retrospect. In an article published in 1935 and reprinted in 1937, Winston Churchill expressed a curious ambivalence towards the German chancellor prior to the outbreak of war: We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilization will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the great Germanic nation. . . .
We (The British) have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.
The English are loth to express their feelings, but in my stall in the choir I could feel the pent-up, passionate emotion, and also the fear of the congregation, not of death or wounds or material loss, but of defeat and the final ruin of Britain.
I am weary of a task which is done and I hope I shall not shrink when the aftermath ends. My only wish is to live peacefully out the remaining years - if years they be.
How little can we foresee the consequences either of wise or unwise action, of virtue or of malice. Without this measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.