The things that make good headlines attract our attention because they are on the surface of the stream of life, and they distract our attention from the slower, impalpable, imponderable movements that work below the surface and penetrate to the depths.  But, of course, it is really these deeper, slower movements that, in the end, make history, and it is they that stand our huge in retrospect, when the the sensational passing events have dwindled, in perspective, to their true proportions.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian

Conversation with his son Philip Toynbee, Comparing Notes: A Dialogue Across a Generation (1963)