Worth repeating.

The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing ways, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.

-- Robert E. Lee (c. 1866)

They never fail who die In a great cause.

-- Lord Byron (1821)

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness....

-- 2 Timothy 4:7-8

All we have of freedom -- all we use or know -- This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

-- Rudyard Kipling (1899)

Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.

- Cicero

Without heroes and without heroic sacrifices, there would be no liberty, no law, no order, no justice, no civilization, no great nations or peoples, and no history as we understand that word. Without heroes, such records as might exist among men would be squalid tales of cravenness and brutality. Heroism is not only creative by its very nature, but is a wondrous virtue that possesses the power to renew the works and institutions of man, which by themselves are wont to ossify and decay. Heroism, in certain circumstances, revitalizes and rejuvenates nations grown old and soft, or worn down by adversity. Heroism transforms them, making them again young and fit.

-- Fr. James Thornton (1999)

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

-- Samuel Johnson (1759)

To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man's follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing.

Will and Ariel Durant 

The Lessons of History (1968)

History is the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.

-- Cicero

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-- George Santayana 

Reason in Common Sense (1905)

Somewhere in Goethe's thousands of pages appears the beautiful line: Alle men-schliche Gebrechen Suhnet reine Men-schlichke it. Pure humanity atones for all human crimes and weaknesses. As of today this may be too optimistic a balance sheet. The debit side of the ledger is heavy with mass murders and inhuman tortures, with blasphemy and treason and felonies and cruelties, so despicable in degree and so widespread in practice as to prompt a feeling of despair. Even the purity of character and nobility of purpose of a John Birch can atone for only a small part of so much human vileness.

But there is strong encouragement in finding so firm an entry on the credit side. For the fact that cultural traditions and ethical forces still at work can produce one such man is clear proof that they are still producing others like him. Of the slowly built hereditary and environmental molds, into which such youth are poured, many have now been smashed altogether, and many more have their side walls badly cracked; but many still remain unreached by the stresses of political tyranny and the erosion of moral anarchy around us. The output of these molds can still save our civilization.

-- Robert Welch 

The Life of John Birch (1954)

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man,

When duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1863)