
“Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.”
Book II, Ch. 10. Of Books
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.”
“Those who can command themselves, command others.”
No. 407
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
“History is written by the victors, but it's victims who write the memoirs.”
Source: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
Explaining why he used many different pseudonyms.
Oxford Companion to Children's Literature: "Charles Hamilton" (pages 235-7)
“Ah, who will write the history of what might have been?”
Fernando Pessoa (as Álvaro de Campos), quoted by José Saramago in The Stone Raft (1986), p. 9
Misattributed
The New York Times (30 June 1985)
Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 19, citing Peiper to Karl Wortmann, November 28, 1974 in note 27.
Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 80 http://books.google.com/books?id=3gtoAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA80&dq=%22come+across+men+of+letters+who+have+written+history+without+taking+part+in+public+affairs%22
1850s and later