they do not make it just as they please

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please: they do not make it under circumstances they choose by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted by the past." -- Karl Marx

Whatever happened to honor?

From John Lyde Wilson's "The American: Code of Honor" or "Rules for the Government of Principles and Seconds In Dueling."

"I would not wish to be understood to say that I do not desire to see dueling cease to exist, entirely, in society. But my plan for doing it away is essentially different from the one which teaches a passive forbearance to insult and indignity. I would inculcate in the rising generation a spirit of lofty independence. I would have them taught that nothing was more derogatory to the honor of a gentleman than to wound the feelings of any one, however humble. That, if wrong be done to another, it was more an act of heroism and bravery to repair the injury, than to persist in error, and enter into mortal combat with the injured party. That this would be an aggravation of that which was already odious, and would put him without the pale of all decent society and honorable men."