Donald Kagan

"Seeing what Hitler and the Nazis had done, I knew there was real evil in the world, and after that, I couldn’t take pacifists seriously."

"The peace does not keep itself, and though it may be intellectually unfashionable to say so, the world needs a policeman."

"We are the product of Western civilization, so it’s necessary to understand yourself before you can understand anyone else."

"In my judgment, the best history is one that tells a story and combines it with analysis. The natural way for an historian to analyze things includes answering with a tale. The combination of telling an interesting story and answering questions along the way that an intelligent person is interested in hearing about--that's history at its peak, in my opinion."

"Concerns about the decline of liberty in our whole polity is what threatens all of the aspects of it, including democracy."