““THERE IS SOMETHING DISPIRITING ABOUT THE MARCH of history. That web which never alters despite an infinite range of motifs and variations: the same struggle for power under ever-different masks; the vain triumphs, the declines and falls; the ever-recurring myths; the straining toward a future that, though it always eludes the grasp, never ceases to exert its pressure and make its demands; the turning wheel which changes yet does not change; the hopes always disappointed, the victories foredoomed to failure—whether the picture they paint of man expresses his greatness or his weakness, we shall never know. Both, probably—and both at the same time. Nothing is more futile than history, and yet history is man himself. Nothing is more accidental, nothing more necessary. Everything could probably have been otherwise. But everything is as it is, and forever.””
